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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. From context, what is is likely meaning of "single" in line 1, "Behold her, single in the field"?
(a) Alone.
(b) Honest.
(c) Unmarried.
(d) Simple.

2. 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.

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

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

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

Short Answer Questions

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

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

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

5. What do the metaphors in lines 9-12 and 13-16 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. 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?

4. 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.

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

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 rhyme scheme of "The Solitary Reaper."

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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