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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. The first line of Part III of "Burnt Norton" states that "here is a place of" what?
(a) Consciousness.
(b) Time future.
(c) Stillness.
(d) Disaffection.

2. The speaker states in the third part of "East Coker" that "In order to arrive at what you do not know / You must go by a way which is the way of" what?
(a) Wisdom.
(b) Ignorance.
(c) Principles.
(d) Elders.

3. What is the last phrase of Part I of "East Coker"?
(a) The dawn wind.
(b) In my end.
(c) In my beginning.
(d) I am here.

4. Which of the following does the speaker wish to hear of concerning old men, in "East Coker," Part II?
(a) Their folly.
(b) Their lives.
(c) Their loves.
(d) Their wisdom.

5. By a grace of what was the speaker surrounded in "Burnt Norton," Part II?
(a) Incomprehensibility.
(b) Sense.
(c) Thought.
(d) Deprivation.

Short Answer Questions

1. In the fifth part of "East Coker" the speaker claims that there is only the fight to do what?

2. What goes in and out of "unwholesome lungs" in Part III of "Burnt Norton"?

3. What is desiccated when the speaker descends into a different world in the latter lines of "Burnt Norton," Part III?

4. In what way did the speaker, his auditor, and the flowers move in the garden of Part I of "Burnt Norton"?

5. In what do faith, hope, and love all reside, according to Part III of "East Coker"?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is meant in "Burnt Norton"'s first part by "What might have been... a world of speculation," lines 6-8?

2. What is signified by the speaker's questioning of the deceitfulness of the "quiet-voiced elders" in Part II of "East Coker"?

3. What purpose is served by the string of paradoxical statements at the end of Part III of "East Coker"?

4. What does the speaker mean by commanding, in Part III of "East Coker," that one wait without hoping or loving, and that "the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting"?

5. Why does the speaker of "East Coker" want only to hear of the folly of old men, in Part II of "East Coker"?

6. What might be meant by the statement of the bird at the end of "Burnt Norton"'s first part, that "human kind / Cannot bear very much reality"?

7. How is the "here" of Part III of "Burnt Norton" described, and what is significant about this description?

8. Why is the final sentence of "East Coker" an inversion of the first sentence?

9. What is the purpose of the line, repeated and modified throughout the first part of "East Coker," "In my beginning is my end"?

10. Why does the speaker find "only a limited value / In the knowledge derived from experience" in Part II of "East Coker"?

(see the answer keys)

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