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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In "How the Milky Way Was Made," what do the Natives lift into the sky?
(a) Fish.
(b) The moon.
(c) Water.
(d) The sun.

2. In "The Cure for Melancholy Is to Take the Horn," the speaker mentions an "alcazar." What is an alcazar?
(a) A garden in the shape of a labyrinth.
(b) A wine grape.
(c) A type of Medieval castle.
(d) A poultice meant to sooth a wound.

3. In "How the Milky Way Was Made," what does the speaker claim causes the milky appearance of the galaxy?
(a) The quivering of her lover's body.
(b) Dust from the moon.
(c) Sparks from the sun.
(d) The movement of fish.

4. In "That Which Cannot Be Stilled," what technique is evident in the line, "Four fat quails making a campanile of the mesquite tree" (43)?
(a) Consonance.
(b) Neologism.
(c) Antonomasia.
(d) Circumlocution.

5. In "Top Ten Reasons Why Indians Are Good at Basketball," who is mentioned as having stolen the Creator's heart?
(a) Coyote.
(b) Eagle.
(c) Raven.
(d) Rabbit.

6. In "Ode to the Beloved's Hips," what war is alluded to?
(a) The Peloponnesian War.
(b) The Trojan War.
(c) The Texas-Indian Wars.
(d) The Battle of Red Cliffs.

7. In "The First Water Is the Body," whom does the speaker call "The only red people I've ever seen" (46)?
(a) Communists.
(b) Embarrassed politicians.
(c) Sunburned tourists.
(d) The Mojave.

8. In "Top Ten Reasons Why Indians Are Good at Basketball," what other Indian author is mentioned?
(a) Sherman Alexie.
(b) Susan Power.
(c) Louis Owens.
(d) Linda Hogan.

9. In "Waist and Sway," to what type of building is the beloved compared?
(a) An apartment.
(b) A ziggurat.
(c) A church bell tower.
(d) A skyscraper.

10. In "Snake-Light," the speaker mentions "caliche" (82). What is caliche?
(a) A sedimentary rock.
(b) A desert insect.
(c) A bone in a snake's tail.
(d) A kind of ravine or gully.

11. In "Ode to the Beloved's Hips," what technique is employed in the phrase "How many hours bowed" (37)?
(a) Amplification.
(b) Assonance.
(c) Conundrum.
(d) Eye rhyme.

12. On page 87 of "Snake-Light," why does the speaker's great-grandmother tell her they do not eat snakes?
(a) "They teach us how to speak."
(b) "They are our sisters."
(c) "They keep out desert clean."
(d) "They carry poison."

13. What question does the speaker ask on page 81, near the end of "If I Should Come Upon Your House Lonely in the West Texas Desert"?
(a) "What is your address?"
(b) "Where else can I go?"
(c) "Where is the rope of light?"
(d) "Are you my new home?"

14. In "My Brother, My Wound," what does the speaker's brother call into the house?
(a) Canaries.
(b) Pigs.
(c) Yellow jackets.
(d) Bulls.

15. In "I, Minotaur," what device is used in phrases like "love and what love becomes" and "appetite of your own appetite" (55)?
(a) Juxtaposition.
(b) Metonymy.
(c) Paradox.
(d) Parallelism.

Short Answer Questions

1. In "I, Minotaur," what does the speaker call "lilac-lit pools of ablution" (57)?

2. In "Ode to the Beloved's Hips," what twentieth century American movie is alluded to?

3. In "Waist and Sway," the page 78 line "Oh, City--where hands turned holy" is an example of what literary technique?

4. In "The First Water Is the Body," what protest does the speaker mention?

5. In "Waist and Sway," the passage in which jackdaws wait on the garden walls compares the lover to what?

(see the answer keys)

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