View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In "Grief Work," which ancient work is alluded to?
(a) The Code of Hammurabi.
(b) Hesiod's Theogony.
(c) Homer's Odyssey.
(d) The Egyptian Book of the Dead.

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

3. In "exhibits from The American Water Museum," what does the speaker say is the "first violence against any body of water" (64)?
(a) Polluting it.
(b) Forgetting its original name.
(c) Damming it.
(d) Becoming alienated from it.

4. In "The First Water Is the Body," what word does the speaker borrow from John Berger?
(a) "Pre-verbal."
(b) "Channeled."
(c) "Submerge."
(d) "Juxtaposition."

5. In "The First Water Is the Body," what river does the author specifically discuss?
(a) The Salmon River.
(b) The Green River.
(c) The Colorado River.
(d) The Blackfoot River.

Short Answer Questions

1. In "The Cure for Melancholy Is to Take the Horn," what creature's horn is referenced in the poem's epigraph?

2. In "Grief Work," what does the speaker say she is giving up?

3. In "That Which Cannot Be Stilled," what American poet's death is mentioned?

4. What figure from Mexican folklore is referred to in "exhibits from The American Water Museum"?

5. In "How the Milky Way Was Made," what do the Natives lift into the sky?

Short Essay Questions

1. In "The First Water Is the Body," what point does the speaker make about the limitations of words?

2. In "exhibits from The American Water Museum," what does the guidebook say?

3. In "Snake-Light," what does the speaker say happens when the word "Hikwiir" is said aloud (84)?

4. What is the setting of "Waist and Sway," and how is its setting unusual for this collection?

5. In "Waist and Sway," what temptation is the speaker trying to resist, and what is the outcome?

6. In "My Brother, My Wound," how is light used metaphorically?

7. What two conceits are central to "If I Should Come Upon Your House Lonely in the West Texas Desert"?

8. In "How the Milky Way Was Made," what does the speaker say about Coyote?

9. In "exhibits from The American Water Museum," what is depicted in the "Photograph from a South American newspaper," and what is its significance?

10. In "Top Ten Reasons Why Indians Are Good at Basketball," what is the double entente in the line, "as it rips down through the net, our enemies will fall to their wounded knees, with torn ACLs" (41)?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 879 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample