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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 1: "There Will Come Soft Rains".

Multiple Choice Questions

1. The use of sentence fragments in the description of the spreading fire is probably intended to create what effect?
(a) Chaos and speed.
(b) Confusion and doubt.
(c) Distance and irony.
(d) Apathy and resignation.

2. Just before the house collapses, what does it do?
(a) It begins performing multiple functions over and over.
(b) It dumps out all of the liquor, coffee, and milk in one last attempt to fight the fire.
(c) It announces the wrong date and time.
(d) It shuts down entirely except for its "voice" function.

3. What historical event is alluded to with the date given in the beginning of the story?
(a) The bombing of Hiroshima.
(b) The first testing of a nuclear bomb.
(c) The beginning of the Cold War.
(d) The beginning of World War II.

4. The line "And swallows circling with their shimmering sound" is an example of which technique?
(a) Alliteration.
(b) Parallelism.
(c) Metaphor.
(d) Personification.

5. What causes the fire to eventually win the battle with the house?
(a) The house stops defending itself.
(b) The rain stops.
(c) The fire reaches the house's "brain" in the attic.
(d) The wind creates flames so intense the house cannot fight them.

Short Answer Questions

1. When the fire travels outside and up the sides of the house, it is described as what?

2. Which is the best descriptor of the mood of the scene in the study, where the poem is read and music plays as a cigar slowly burns down to ash?

3. What is the reaction of nature to the end of human existence in the poem "There Will Come Soft Rains"?

4. To what does the phrase "the children's hour" allude?

5. In the section about the nursery, Bradbury mentions the "sprockets" in the walls. What are "sprockets"?

(see the answer key)

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