Unit 9: Explanation of Verse Passages - Practice Quiz

1 What is a seen passage in verse?

2 What should be mentioned first when explaining a seen verse passage?

3 In the explanation of a verse passage, what does reference to context mean?

4 What does it mean to paraphrase a verse passage?

5 In a studied poem, rain is called a welcome guest after a long drought. What does this expression mean?

6 Why should the central idea be included when explaining a seen verse passage?

7 In poetry, who is the speaker?

8 Read the studied line: The moon smiled upon the sleeping town. Which poetic device is used?

9 Which language is most suitable for explaining a seen verse passage?

10 Which is the best order for explaining a seen verse passage?

11 What is an unseen passage in verse?

12 Read the lines:

> Dawn spills gold across the sky,
> And wakes the fields as birds fly.

Which sense is mainly appealed to?

13 Read the line:

> The happy leaves danced in the breeze.

Which poetic device is used?

14 Read the line:

> The cloud sailed like a ship.

What is the cloud compared to?

15 Read the lines:

> The lake lay still beneath the moon;
> The sleeping village rested too.

What is the mood of these lines?

16 Read the lines:

> Though the road is steep and long,
> I will keep on moving strong.

What is the main idea?

17 Read the lines:

> The old tree spreads its arms so wide,
> And gives the tired birds a place to hide.

What does the tree provide?

18 Read the stanza:

> The sun sinks low beyond the hill,
> The birds fly home across the sky,
> The evening air is calm and still,
> As fading clouds go drifting by.

What is its rhyme scheme?

19 Read the line:

> The silver stream slides softly south.

Which sound device is most noticeable?

20 Read the lines:

> Open a book and you may find
> New worlds waiting in your mind.

What message do these lines convey?

21 In Wordsworth's Daffodils, the speaker says that the flowers later "flash upon that inward eye." What does this expression explain?

22 In Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken, the speaker predicts that he will describe his choice "with a sigh." Which interpretation best fits the passage?

23 In Tennyson's The Brook, the brook declares, "For men may come and men may go, / But I go on for ever." What contrast is central to these lines?

24 In Longfellow's A Psalm of Life, what do the "footprints on the sands of time" represent?

25 At the end of Wordsworth's The Solitary Reaper, the speaker carries the maiden's music in his heart "long after it was heard no more." What is emphasized?

26 In Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, why does the repeated line "And miles to go before I sleep" matter?

27 In Blake's The Tyger, the phrase "fearful symmetry" most nearly suggests that the tiger is

28 In Kipling's If—, Triumph and Disaster are called "impostors." What attitude does this description recommend?

29 In Shelley's Ozymandias, a ruined statue stands in an empty desert while its inscription boasts of unmatched power. What is the main irony?

30 In Tennyson's The Charge of the Light Brigade, the statement "Theirs not to reason why" explains that the soldiers

31 Read the unseen lines:

Beneath the frost, a patient seed
Counts every footstep of the rain;
It keeps a map of April skies
And waits to read the sun again.

What idea is chiefly conveyed?

32 Read the unseen lines:

Rain rubbed the promises from the wall,
Each chalk-white word became a stream;
By dawn the bricks remembered nothing,
Though one child guarded every dream.

What does the contrast in the final two lines suggest?

33 Read the unseen lines:

The clock chewed softly through the night,
Minute by minute, tooth by tooth;
I watched my unfinished letter fade
From courage into truth.

What does the image of the clock "chewing" emphasize?

34 Read the unseen lines:

The lighthouse stitched a golden thread
Across the torn and restless sea;
Each flash repaired the dark enough
To guide one sailor home to me.

What is the lighthouse mainly presented as?

35 Read the unseen lines:

She set two cups beside the fire,
Then paused and carried one away;
The empty chair said nothing new,
Yet said it louder every day.

What can be inferred about the speaker's situation?

36 Read the unseen lines:

My kite climbed high on borrowed wind,
But still the string remained below;
It pulled against my careful hand,
As if the sky had said, "Let go."

What conflict is represented by the kite and string?

37 Read the unseen lines:

Dust slept deeply on the shelves,
Till I opened one old page;
Then a hundred silent voices
Stepped alive from every age.

Which explanation best captures the passage?

38 Read the unseen lines:

The river broke the moon in two,
Then joined it farther down the stream;
I learned that what the ripples shatter
May still be whole beyond the dream.

What lesson does the speaker draw?

39 Read the unseen lines:

I left the key beneath the stone,
Where you would always think to look;
The door stayed closed, but in my mind
Your hand already shook the lock.

What does the speaker most likely expect?

40 Read the unseen lines:

At dusk the road released the heat
It carried through the crowded day;
The village windows opened wide,
And evening washed the noise away.

Which title best reflects the movement of the passage?

41 In Wordsworth's I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, consider:

> They flash upon that inward eye
> Which is the bliss of solitude.

Which explanation best captures the relationship between memory and solitude?

42 In Shelley's Ozymandias, the ruined statue bears the command:

> Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Yet nothing remains around it except empty sand. What is the principal effect of this juxtaposition?

43 At the end of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18, the speaker declares:

> So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

What does the second use of 'this' primarily refer to?

44 In Blake's The Tyger, the opening asks what immortal being could create the tiger, while the final stanza asks what being would 'dare' to do so. What does this change from ability to daring add?

45 In Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the sailors lament:

> Water, water, every where,
> Nor any drop to drink.

Which explanation most fully accounts for the force of these lines?

46 In Tennyson's Ulysses, the speaker says:

> Though much is taken, much abides;
> ... that which we are, we are;
> One equal temper of heroic hearts.

What argumentative function does this passage perform?

47 In Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn, the speaker states:

> Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
> Are sweeter.

Why are the unheard melodies described as sweeter?

48 In Dickinson's Because I could not stop for Death, the speaker first says that the carriage passed the setting sun, then corrects herself:

> Or rather – He passed Us –

What is the main effect of this correction?

49 In Shelley's Ode to the West Wind, the wind is addressed as both 'Destroyer and Preserver.' Which interpretation best resolves this paradox?

50 In Wordsworth's The Solitary Reaper, the speaker offers several guesses about the subject of the reaper's song—ancient battles, sorrow, or ordinary loss. What is the chief significance of these alternatives?

51 Read the unseen passage:

> At noon he set the silent clock to chime,
> then pocketed the cog that made it late.
> The square applauded punctuality;
> his own watch slept beneath a photograph.

Which interpretation best explains the contrast between the public clock and the private watch?

52 Read the unseen passage:

> The map was honest: every road was drawn,
> except the path worn pale beneath my feet.
> I folded north into a paper bird
> and let it choose the weather for my flight.

What does the transformation of the map into a bird most strongly suggest?

53 Read the unseen passage:

> Rain writes in pencil on the harbor wall;
> the tide revises every hurried line.
> Only the rusted anchor keeps its name,
> though no ship now remembers being held.

What is implied by the anchor's preservation of its 'name'?

54 Read the unseen passage:

> I praised the lamp for conquering the dark,
> then saw the moths like commas round its flame;
> the sentence of the night remained unfinished,
> each small correction burning as it came.

How do the final three lines qualify the apparent triumph in the first line?

55 Read the unseen passage:

> My father planted doors along the field;
> by spring, green hinges climbed each empty frame.
> No walls were built. Yet every passing wind
> entered more softly, as if asking leave.

Which explanation best accounts for the wind's changed behavior?

56 Read the unseen passage:

> Under the bridge, the river rehearsed
> the same goodbye in twenty dialects.
> I answered once; the echo changed my words
> to something even I could not forgive.

What combined role do the river and echo play?

57 Read the unseen passage:

> The judge removed her spectacles and said,
> ‘The facts are clear.’ Outside, the fog
> pressed its blank thumb against every pane,
> and witnesses went home by different roads.

What is the main function of the fog and the witnesses' divergent roads?

58 Read the unseen passage:

> We fed the fire our letters, one by one;
> the ash kept perfect copies of their weight.
> By dawn, no word survived, but on our hands
> the smoke had written what we would not read.

What central paradox structures the passage?

59 Read the unseen passage:

> The orchard bowed beneath its borrowed snow—
> white blossoms practicing an old defeat.
> By evening, petals crowded every ditch,
> and fruit began where beauty disappeared.

Which interpretation best describes the passage's treatment of loss?

60 Read the unseen passage:

> She stitched a coastline into his torn sleeve,
> blue thread for water, gold for absent sand.
> He wore the map through countries without names,
> always arriving where the needle stopped.

How does the ambiguity of 'needle' deepen the final line?