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

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

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

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

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

Short Answer Questions

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

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

3. What is the antecedent of "it" in the phrase "it was ourselves" (line 9)?

4. The repetition of the word "deed" in line 13 is an example of which technique?

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

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. Explain the poem's title.

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

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

6. 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)?

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

(see the answer keys)

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