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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

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

3. In the fourth stanza, when the speaker finally places himself in the scene, what is it clear he is there to do?
(a) He is delivering supplies.
(b) He is there to confess his love for the woman.
(c) He is working on a farm.
(d) He is out walking.

4. What do all three sentences in the third stanza have in common?
(a) They are all run-ons.
(b) They are all fragments.
(c) They are all periodic sentences.
(d) They are all questions.

5. How does line 3, "Reaping and singing by herself," interrupt the poem's dominant metrical pattern?
(a) It ends with a spondee.
(b) It begins with a trochee.
(c) It ends with a trochee.
(d) It begins with a spondee.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where are "the farthest Hebrides" (line 16)?

2. What is the stanzaic form of "The Solitary Reaper"?

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

4. What technique is used in the line "A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard" (line 13)?

5. Which of the following most clearly communicates the speaker's admiration for the reaper's singing ability?

Short Essay Questions

1. What are the names of the two forms of poetry that are combined in this poem, and how are they combined?

2. Describe the rhyme scheme of "The Solitary Reaper."

3. Summarize the action of "The Solitary Reaper."

4. In what way do the places associated with the two birds create a dramatic contrast with one another?

5. What question does the speaker ask in the third stanza, and what two contrasting answers does he speculate about?

6. To which two birds does the speaker compare the reaper, and what area of the world does the speaker associate with each?

7. Describe the meter of "The Solitary Reaper."

8. Describe the tense shift in "The Solitary Reaper" and explain what it reveals about the poem's narrative present.

9. Explain how the mention of "spring-time" in line 14's description of the cuckoo enhances the contrast between this image and the image of the nightingale.

10. How does the speaker's line 26 description of the reaper singing "As if her song could have no ending" reinforce the meaning of the poem's ending?

(see the answer keys)

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