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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 3 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. What techniques are used in the lines "She was ours/ In Massachusetts, in Virginia" (lines 3-4)?
(a) Apostrophe and antithesis.
(b) Antithesis and synecdoche.
(c) Synecdoche and asyndeton.
(d) Asyndeton and apostrophe.

3. Who is the author of "The Gift Outright"?
(a) Donald Hall.
(b) Robert Frost.
(c) Galway Kinnell.
(d) Robert Lowell.

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

5. What technique is used in the phrase "unstoried, artless, unenhanced" (line 15)?
(a) Assonance.
(b) Euphemism.
(c) Asyndeton.
(d) Apostrophe.

6. What does line 12 make clear is the "Gift" in the title "The Gift Outright"?
(a) Freedom from England.
(b) Surrender and salvation.
(c) Americans themselves.
(d) The land Americans live on.

7. What technique is used in the lines "She was our land more than a hundred years/ Before we were her people" (lines 2-3)?
(a) Symbolism.
(b) Personification.
(c) Metonymy.
(d) Alliteration.

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

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

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

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

12. The repetition of the word "deed" in line 13 is an example of which technique?
(a) Antanaclasis.
(b) Anadiplosis.
(c) Epizeuxis.
(d) Epistrophe.

13. 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) Antithesis and oxymoron.
(b) Oxymoron and epistrophe.
(c) Epistrophe and chiasmus.
(d) Chiasmus and antithesis.

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

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

Short Answer Questions

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

2. What technique is used in the line "Such as she was, such as she would become" (line 16)?

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

(see the answer keys)

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