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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. Which term most accurately describes the meter of "The Gift Outright"?
(a) Free verse.
(b) Ballad meter.
(c) Blank verse.
(d) Heroic verse.

2. Which is the primary definition of "still" being used in the expression "still colonials" in line 5?
(a) Nevertheless.
(b) Quiet.
(c) Continuing to be.
(d) Unmoving.

3. What technique is used in line 10, "We were withholding from our land of living"?
(a) Personification.
(b) Alliteration.
(c) Metonymy.
(d) Paradox.

4. According to the poem's second sentence, how did "we" find "salvation"?
(a) By finding the courage to fight England.
(b) By fully surrendering ourselves to the land.
(c) By dedicating ourselves to the Christian God.
(d) By realizing our own weakness.

5. What is alluded to in the phrase "the land vaguely realizing westward" (line 14)?
(a) The American Civil War.
(b) The Westward expansion of the United States.
(c) The forced resettlement of Native peoples.
(d) The Louisiana Purchase.

Short Answer Questions

1. To what event does the phrase "more than a hundred years/ Before we were her people" obliquely refer?

2. What does line 12 make clear is the "Gift" in the title "The Gift Outright"?

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

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

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)?

(see the answer key)

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