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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What technique is used in the line "Such as she was, such as she would become" (line 16)?
(a) Symbolism.
(b) Chiasmus.
(c) Anadiplosis.
(d) Anaphora.

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

3. What is the implied antecedent of "our" and "we" in lines 1 and 2?
(a) Colonists.
(b) Americans.
(c) Revolutionaries.
(d) Farmers.

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

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

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

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

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

9. 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.

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

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

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

13. 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) Alliteration.
(b) Personification.
(c) Symbolism.
(d) Metonymy.

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

15. 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) "What we now no more possessed" (line 7).
(d) "Something we were withholding" (line 8).

Short Answer Questions

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

2. What is alluded to in the phrase "the land vaguely realizing westward" (line 14)?

3. 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 keys)

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