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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) Anadiplosis.
(b) Anaphora.
(c) Chiasmus.
(d) Symbolism.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

9. 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.

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

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

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

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

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

15. 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) Alliteration.
(d) Personification.

Short Answer Questions

1. In line 15, what is the speaker calling "unstoried, artless, unenhanced"?

2. Which is the primary definition of "still" being used in the expression "still colonials" in line 5?

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

(see the answer keys)

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