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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 meaning of the word "lay" in the line "Or is it some more humble lay" (line 21)?
(a) A narrative poem written in couplets.
(b) A reclining position.
(c) A plan or pattern.
(d) Tune or song.

2. Besides that the reaper may be singing about some terrible moment in history, what else does the speaker guess she might be singing about?
(a) Love and romance.
(b) Modern political events.
(c) Ordinary, everyday troubles.
(d) The beauty of the Highlands.

3. 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 a song that she has made up herself.
(c) She is too far away to be heard clearly.
(d) She is singing in a language the speaker does not understand.

4. 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 out walking.
(b) He is working on a farm.
(c) He is delivering supplies.
(d) He is there to confess his love for the woman.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. In which stanza does the speaker make it clear that this event happened some time in the past?

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

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

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

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

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. 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.

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

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

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

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

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

8. 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?

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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