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

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

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

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"?
(a) Metaphor.
(b) Imagery.
(c) Euphemism.
(d) Oxymoron.

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

Short Answer Questions

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

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

3. Which techniques are evident in the phrase "dapple-dawn-drawn" (line 2)?

4. Which word is enjambed at the end of line 1 and the beginning of line 2?

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

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

5. 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)?

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

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

8. 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"?

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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