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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the stanzaic form of "The Solitary Reaper"?
(a) Octet.
(b) Ottava rima.
(c) Ballade.
(d) Octave.

2. What technique is used in phrases like "the Vale profound" (line 7) and "A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard" (line 13)?
(a) Symbolism.
(b) Inversion.
(c) Imagery.
(d) Simile.

3. What technique is employed in lines 7 and 8, "O listen! for the Vale profound / Is overflowing with the sound"?
(a) Hyperbole.
(b) Cacophony.
(c) Antanaclasis.
(d) Metonymy.

4. What is the meaning of the word "Yon" in line 2, "Yon solitary Highland Lass"?
(a) Over there, that one.
(b) My.
(c) Nearby, this one.
(d) You.

5. Which line uses deliberate redundancy for emphasis?
(a) "Behold her, single in the field" (line 1).
(b) "I listened, motionless and still" (line 29).
(c) "For old, unhappy, far-off things" (line 19).
(d) "Stop here, or gently pass" (line 4).

6. What technique is used in the line "A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard" (line 13)?
(a) Litotes.
(b) Paradox.
(c) Verbal irony.
(d) Contraction.

7. In the lines "Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow / For old, unhappy, far-off things," what does "plaintive numbers" refer to (lines 18-19)?
(a) The reaper's tears.
(b) The reaper's personal experience.
(c) The song.
(d) Time and history.

8. Where are "the farthest Hebrides" (line 16)?
(a) Australia.
(b) Russia.
(c) Scotland.
(d) Chile.

9. Who is the author of "The Solitary Reaper"?
(a) Percy Shelley.
(b) John Keats.
(c) William Blake.
(d) William Wordsworth.

10. What is the young woman doing in the field?
(a) Pushing a cart down a path.
(b) Harvesting a grain crop.
(c) Watching over grazing sheep.
(d) Watching the speaker from the hillside.

11. What technique is evident in the poem's opening line, "Behold her, single in the field" (line 1)?
(a) Allusion.
(b) Analogy.
(c) Apology.
(d) Apostrophe.

12. What reasonable inference can be made about the reaper from line 17, "Will no one tell me what she sings?"?
(a) She is singing an old folk song that the speaker does not know the title of.
(b) She is singing in a language the speaker does not understand.
(c) She is singing a song that she has made up herself.
(d) She is too far away to be heard clearly.

13. Which of the following most clearly communicates the speaker's admiration for the reaper's singing ability?
(a) The poem's elevated diction.
(b) The repeated use of exclamation points.
(c) The metaphors in the second stanza.
(d) The poem's nature imagery.

14. What technique is evident in the line "Breaking the silence of the seas" (line 15)?
(a) Synesthesia.
(b) Aphorismus.
(c) Sibilance.
(d) Onomatopoeia.

15. What is the "sickle" in line 28?
(a) A tied sheaf of grain.
(b) A handle used to pull a cart.
(c) A sharp cutting tool.
(d) A mark dyed into wool to track sheep.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which stanza could be reasonably called the most positive in tone?

2. In the second stanza, to whom is the nightingale depicted singing?

3. How does line 3, "Reaping and singing by herself," interrupt the poem's dominant metrical pattern?

4. Where in the Highlands is the field where the woman is standing?

5. From context, what is is likely meaning of "single" in line 1, "Behold her, single in the field"?

(see the answer keys)

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