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

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

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

4. Which stanza could be reasonably called the most positive in tone?
(a) The fourth.
(b) The first.
(c) The second.
(d) The third.

5. 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) Ordinary, everyday troubles.
(b) Modern political events.
(c) The beauty of the Highlands.
(d) Love and romance.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is subtly appropriate about the meter in lines 25 and 26, "Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang / As if her song could have no ending"?

2. What reasonable inference can be made about the reaper from line 17, "Will no one tell me what she sings?"?

3. In the lines "Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow / For old, unhappy, far-off things," what does "plaintive numbers" refer to (lines 18-19)?

4. What is the meaning of the word "lay" in the line "Or is it some more humble lay" (line 21)?

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

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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 rhyme scheme of "The Solitary Reaper."

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

(see the answer keys)

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