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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

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

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

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

5. 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.

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

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

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

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

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

11. 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.

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

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

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

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What technique is used in line 10, "We were withholding from our land of living"?

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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