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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the common name of the titular bird?
(a) Hawk.
(b) Osprey.
(c) Kite.
(d) Kestrel.

2. What is "sillion" (line 12)?
(a) The sparkling of a diamond.
(b) Sunshine.
(c) An uncountable amount.
(d) A type of soil.

3. Which techniques are evident in the phrase "dapple-dawn-drawn" (line 2)?
(a) Metaphor and alliteration.
(b) Alliteration and internal rhyme.
(c) Onomatopoeia and metaphor.
(d) Internal rhyme and onomatopoeia.

4. To whom is the poem dedicated?
(a) Matthew Arnold.
(b) Christ.
(c) The poet's spouse.
(d) A Victorian minister.

5. What does "shéer plód" mean (line 12)?
(a) A heavy feeling of apathy.
(b) Slow, boring, repetitive work.
(c) Clumsy and random movement.
(d) Keen and attentive determination.

6. Who is being referred to in line 10's "thee"?
(a) The windhover.
(b) Christ.
(c) The speaker.
(d) The air.

7. What does line 10 say "Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume" do "here" (line 9)?
(a) Break.
(b) Soar.
(c) Stir.
(d) Buckle.

8. What is a "chevalier" (line 11)?
(a) A bird.
(b) A falconer.
(c) A knight.
(d) A horse.

9. In lines 5 and 6, what is the bird's motion compared to?
(a) A ball being thrown.
(b) An arrow.
(c) A swing.
(d) An ice skater.

10. Between which lines does the poem use "light rhyme"?
(a) A and C.
(b) A and B.
(c) B and C.
(d) B and D.

11. What technique is employed in the line 9 phrase "oh, air, pride, plume, here"?
(a) Asyndeton.
(b) Anaphora.
(c) Antithesis.
(d) Atanaclasis.

12. Which word is enjambed at the end of line 1 and the beginning of line 2?
(a) Kingdom.
(b) Morning.
(c) Daylight.
(d) Minion.

13. In line 5, what does the speaker claim the bird is feeling?
(a) Pride.
(b) Ecstasy.
(c) Anticipation.
(d) Awe.

14. What techniques are evident in the phrase "Rebuffed the big wind" (line 7)?
(a) Personification and consonance.
(b) Euphony and personification.
(c) Assonance and euphony.
(d) Consonance and assonance.

15. In lines 10 and 11, the speaker says that the fire "that breaks from thee" is a billion times "lovelier" and more what?
(a) Dangerous.
(b) Sanctified.
(c) Hypnotic.
(d) Rapturous.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the bird the "dauphin" of (line 2)?

2. Where is the volta of "The Windhover"?

3. What would it mean to have "Rebuffed the big wind" (line 7)?

4. What technique is employed in the poem's final two lines, "blue-bleak embers, ah my dear/ Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion"?

5. What type of rhyme is seen in the poem's "B" lines"?

(see the answer keys)

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