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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 does the word "wimpling" literally mean in the context of line 4?
(a) Covering.
(b) Like a nun's habit.
(c) Rippling.
(d) Muffling.

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

3. What type of rhyme is seen in the poem's "A" lines?
(a) Eye.
(b) Feminine.
(c) Masculine.
(d) Slant.

4. What is the bird the "dauphin" of (line 2)?
(a) Daylight.
(b) The dawn.
(c) Flight.
(d) The air.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. Who is being referred to in line 10's "thee"?

2. What device is evident in line 10's "the fire that breaks from thee then"?

3. What is "sillion" (line 12)?

4. What technique is employed in the line 9 phrase "oh, air, pride, plume, here"?

5. What does line 10 say "Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume" do "here" (line 9)?

Short Essay Questions

1. In "The Windhover," who is speaking, and what moves him to speak?

2. What are the literal and figurative meanings of the poem's references to a "dauphin" and a "chevalier"?

3. What is the meaning of the simile contained in lines 6 and 7: " As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding/ Rebuffed the big wind"?

4. How do the images in the last three lines support the idea that there is "no wonder" in the kestrel's fight (line 9)?

5. What Christian paradox is expressed when the speaker refers to the bird as both a "minion" and a "dauphin" (lines 1-2)?

6. What makes a creature like the windhover an appropriate symbol for Christ?

7. What is a "windhover," and what characteristic of its flight is focused on in this poem?

8. What is the relationship of the expression "in his riding/ Of the rolling level underneath him steady air" (lines 2-3) to the later reference to "the rein of a wimpling wing" (line 4)?

9. Describe the relationship of the content in the poem's final six lines to the content in lines 1-8.

10. Describe the poetic form of "The Windhover."

(see the answer keys)

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