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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What technique is used in lines 7 and 8, "’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells/ Pumping in my living room"?
(a) Simile.
(b) Personification.
(c) Juxtaposition.
(d) Metaphor.

2. Which is the best definition of "beset" in line 6?
(a) Inspired.
(b) Decorated.
(c) Troubled.
(d) Cradled.

3. How does the speaker characterize herself in line 4?
(a) Intelligent and curious.
(b) Brave and perseverent.
(c) Lively and confident.
(d) Lighthearted and silly.

4. In line 17, what kind of a person is described by the word "haughtiness"?
(a) Arrogant and proud.
(b) Mean-spirited and petty.
(c) Sneaky and dishonest.
(d) Strange and eccentric.

5. What is the primary quality that the speaker's stanza eight description of a body of water is intended to convey?
(a) Power.
(b) Independence.
(c) Persistence.
(d) Endurance.

6. Which two things does the final stanza use to represent the past and present?
(a) Gathering clouds and rain.
(b) Night and daybreak.
(c) The directions east and west.
(d) A seed and a sprout.

7. What words create a refrain in the final two stanzas of the poem?
(a) "Still I rise."
(b) "Again I rise."
(c) "I rise."
(d) "I rise and rise."

8. What technique is used in line 21, "You may shoot me with your words"?
(a) Innuendo.
(b) Simile.
(c) Kenning.
(d) Metaphor.

9. What body of water does the speaker claim to be in the eighth stanza?
(a) A stream.
(b) A river.
(c) A lake.
(d) An ocean.

10. What technique does the first line of the poem, "You may write me down in history," introduce?
(a) Allegory.
(b) Verbal irony.
(c) Catalog.
(d) Apostrophe.

11. Which technique is frequently used at the beginnings of stanzas?
(a) Cacophony.
(b) Onomatopoeia.
(c) Internal rhyme.
(d) Rhetorical question.

12. In the fourth stanza, what kind of person does the speaker ask if "you" want her to be?
(a) Distant and uninvolved.
(b) Tired and distracted.
(c) Angry and afraid.
(d) Sad and meek.

13. Which is the most logical description of who "You" is in line 1?
(a) People of the past.
(b) An unnamed oppressor.
(c) A romantic partner.
(d) Scholars and critics.

14. What kind of "certainty" does the speaker claim to have in line 10?
(a) The "certainty of tides."
(b) The "certainty of springtime."
(c) The "certainty of air."
(d) The "certainty of history."

15. Which technique is used in line 9, "Just like moons and like suns"?
(a) Dialect.
(b) Parallelism.
(c) Euphemism.
(d) Allusion.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why is the speaker's past "rooted in pain" (line 32)?

2. What technique is used in line 29, "Out of the huts of history’s shame"?

3. What precious stones does the speaker use to evoke beauty and value in the simile in line 27?

4. In the final quatrain, what does the speaker wonder about upsetting "you" with?

5. Which is the best definition for "trod" in the context of line 3?

(see the answer keys)

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