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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. 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 poem's nature imagery.
(c) The metaphors in the second stanza.
(d) The repeated use of exclamation points.

2. 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 song.
(b) Time and history.
(c) The reaper's personal experience.
(d) The reaper's tears.

3. The characterization of the woman as a "Highland Lass" indicates that she is a young woman from what area?
(a) The Hebrides.
(b) Ireland.
(c) Wales.
(d) Scotland.

4. In the second stanza, to whom is the nightingale depicted singing?
(a) Travelers.
(b) The speaker.
(c) The reaper.
(d) Shepherds.

5. 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 too far away to be heard clearly.
(d) She is singing a song that she has made up herself.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. Which is the best interpretation of line 6's reference to "a melancholy strain"?

3. What is the meaning of the word "Yon" in line 2, "Yon solitary Highland Lass"?

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

5. What do all three sentences in the third stanza have in common?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8. 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.

9. 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?

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

(see the answer keys)

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