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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 narrator describes “the little one” as sleeping where in the opening of Section 8?
(a) “Its cradle.”
(b) “A basket.”
(c) “The bathtub.”
(d) “The bed.”

2. The narrator describes being surrounded by “trippers” and what in the opening of Section 4?
(a) “Rollers.”
(b) “Wanderers.”
(c) “Askers.”
(d) “Laughers.”

3. How many suns does the narrator claim there are left in Section 2?
(a) But a few.
(b) Dozens.
(c) A handful.
(d) Millions.

4. The narrator says in Section 24, “I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of” what?
(a) “Monarchy.”
(b) “Socialism.”
(c) “Illuminati.”
(d) “Democracy.”

5. Who does the “red girl” marry in Section 10?
(a) The fisherman.
(b) The trapper.
(c) The lumberjack.
(d) The painter.

Short Answer Questions

1. Whitman writes in Section 1 of the poem that every what “belonging to me as good belongs to you”?

2. Which word from Section 12 means “limber” or “flexible”?

3. Of “these thoughts,” the narrator says “If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are” what, in Section 17?

4. The narrator claims that “size is only” what, in Section 21?

5. The narrator asserts in Section 18 that “battles are lost in the same spirit in which” what?

Short Essay Questions

1. What foreshadowing is exhibited in Section 1 of the poem? How is the universal “I” set up in this section?

2. What motif reappears in Section 17? Why does the poet use this motif here?

3. What does the “twenty-ninth bather” represent metaphorically in Section 11?

4. How does the poet define “I” and “you” in response to his own questions in Section 20?

5. What imagery is the focus of Section 11 of the poem?

6. What is Whitman’s “advice” to the reader in Section 11 of the poem?

7. What comparison of women and men is made by the poet in Section 21?

8. What is signified by these lines from Section 1: “I loafe and invite my soul, / I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass”?

9. How have critics and scholars interpreted the following sexually implicit lines in Section 5: “How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn'd over upon me”?

10. What does Whitman conclude of the quality of “presence” in Section 3?

(see the answer keys)

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