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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 7 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

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

3. 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) Alliteration.
(d) Metonymy.

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

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

Short Answer Questions

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

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

3. What technique is used in the phrase "unstoried, artless, unenhanced" (line 15)?

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

5. Which technique is used in the first line, "The land was ours before we were the land’s"?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is implied by the diction the speaker uses to describe the lands yet to be conquered by American settlers: "unstoried, artless, unenhanced" (line 15)?

2. What does the speaker claim makes the colonists "weak," and what is the solution to this weakness (line 8)?

3. To whom is it implied the pronouns "our" and "we" refer in this poem?

4. Explain the poem's title.

5. Explain the synecdoche in line 4, "In Massachusetts, in Virginia."

6. Describe the form of "The Gift Outright."

7. What does the speaker mean by "the land vaguely realizing westward" (line 14)?

(see the answer keys)

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