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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 1: "The Gift Outright," Lines 1-16.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the antecedent of "it" in the phrase "it was ourselves" (line 9)?
(a) "Still colonials" (line 5).
(b) "What we now no more possessed" (line 7).
(c) "What we still were unpossessed by" (line 6).
(d) "Something we were withholding" (line 8).

2. In line 15, what is the speaker calling "unstoried, artless, unenhanced"?
(a) The American people.
(b) The wars fought to secure land.
(c) The history of the United States.
(d) The American land.

3. To what event does the phrase "more than a hundred years/ Before we were her people" obliquely refer?
(a) The American Revolution.
(b) The American Civil War.
(c) The Pilgrims' first landing.
(d) Columbus's voyage.

4. Which technique is used in the first line, "The land was ours before we were the land’s"?
(a) Euphemism.
(b) Allegory.
(c) Chiasmus.
(d) Anaphora.

5. What techniques are used in the lines "Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,/ Possessed by what we now no more possessed" (lines 6-7)?
(a) Oxymoron and epistrophe.
(b) Chiasmus and antithesis.
(c) Epistrophe and chiasmus.
(d) Antithesis and oxymoron.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the implied antecedent of "our" and "we" in lines 1 and 2?

2. The repetition of the word "deed" in line 13 is an example of which technique?

3. According to the poem's second sentence, how did "we" find "salvation"?

4. Which term most accurately describes the meter of "The Gift Outright"?

5. What techniques are used in the lines "She was ours/ In Massachusetts, in Virginia" (lines 3-4)?

(see the answer key)

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