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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 is the most reasonable interpretation of the speaker's line 13 claim that they have "lost two cities"?
(a) The speaker is no longer interested in either city.
(b) The speaker cannot find either city.
(c) The speaker no longer lives in either city.
(d) The speaker is not welcome in either city.

2. What is used for the first time in the poem's final stanza?
(a) Coordinating conjunctions.
(b) Parenthetical expressions.
(c) Modifying phrases.
(d) Sentence fragments.

3. What is the name of the metrical foot that appears at the end of lines 1 and 3 in most of the stanzas?
(a) Amphibrach.
(b) Tribrach.
(c) Anapest.
(d) Dactyl.

4. What does the second stanza suggest the "art" of losing consists of?
(a) Ignoring loss.
(b) Accepting loss.
(c) Conquering loss.
(d) Grieving loss.

5. What does the colon at the end of line 7, "Then practice losing farther, losing faster," indicate about the "places, and names" in line 8?
(a) Places and names are more upsetting to lose than small objects and small amounts of time.
(b) Places and names are examples of things that can be lost "farther" and "faster."
(c) Places and names are some of the last things that a person loses.
(d) Places and names are examples of things a person can only lose through "practice" and experience.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which word in lines 10 and 11, "And look! my last,/ or next-to-last, of three loved houses went," creates a momentary shift in verb mood?

2. Who is the author of "One Art"?

3. The relationship between stanza two and stanza three is most accurately expressed by which of the following?

4. What is a reasonable statement to make about the effect of the enjambment in lines 8 and 9, "places, and names, and where it was you meant/ to travel"?

5. What is the rhyme scheme of the first five stanzas of "One Art"?

Short Essay Questions

1. To whom is the parenthetical comment "(Write it!)" addressed in line 19, and how does this comment impact the reader's understanding of the poem?

2. Which two verb moods are used in "One Art," and where are they employed?

3. What are the refrains employed in "One Art"?

4. What difference is there in the way the two refrain lines are repeated throughout the poem?

5. Describe the form of "One Art."

6. How does the speaker arrange the examples of things that can be lost?

7. On the surface level, what is the main message of "One Art"?

8. What is the poem's dominant meter, and how is it regularly interrupted?

9. How does the change in stanza structure in the final stanza mimic the poem's changing meaning?

10. How does the speaker's diction increase the emotional stakes as the poem progresses?

(see the answer keys)

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