Overall Structure Questions:

Poem 1: “A Winter’s Memory” (Excerpt)

“The snow drifts high upon the ground,

A quiet hush, a world spellbound.
The trees stand bare, their voices gone,
Yet whispers hum at break of dawn.”

Question 1:

Which choice best describes the structure of the poem?

(A) The poet introduces a question and then provides an answer.
(B) The poet presents contrasting images of sound and silence.
(C) The poem describes events in chronological order.
(D) The poet makes a claim and then supports it with examples.

Poem 2: “Echoes of Youth” (Excerpt)

“Once, I ran through fields of green,

Chasing dreams, light and serene.
Now, my steps are slow and tame,
Yet the dream remains the same.”
Question 2:

Which best describes the way the poem is structured?

(A) The poet describes a past experience and then contrasts it with the present.
(B) The poet poses a question and gradually answers it.
(C) The poem follows a cause-and-effect pattern.
(D) The poet describes a series of events in the order they happened.

Poem 3: “The Lantern’s Glow” (Excerpt)

“A lantern flickers in the dark,

A beacon small, yet fierce and stark.
Through storm and night, its flame stays true,
A single spark can see you through.”

Question 3:

How is the poem structured?

(A) The poet states an idea and illustrates it with examples.
(B) The poem presents a problem and then offers a solution.
(C) The poet describes a series of events in chronological order.
(D) The poem compares two different points of view.
Poem 4: “The Forgotten Path” (Excerpt)

“Where once my footprints lined the shore,

Now tides have washed them evermore.
Yet though the sand may tell no tale,
My heart recalls without fail.”

Question 4:

Which best describes the poem’s organization?

(A) The poet contrasts the impermanence of nature with the permanence of memory.
(B) The poet asks a question and then provides an answer.
(C) The poem presents a series of instructions.
(D) The poet describes a problem and then offers a solution.

Poem 5: The following text is from Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1910 poem “The Earth’s Entail”.

No matter how we cultivate the land,

Taming the forest and the prairie free;
No matter how we irrigate the sand,
Making the desert blossom at command,
We must always leave the borders of the sea;
The immeasurable reaches
Of the windy wave-wet beaches,
The million-mile-long margin of the sea.
 Question 5: Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?

A. The speaker provides examples of an admirable way of approaching nature and then
challenges that approach.

B. The speaker describes attempts to control nature and then offers a reminder that not all
nature is controllable.

C. The speaker argues against interfering with nature and then gives evidence supporting this
interference.

D. The speaker presents an account of efforts to dominate nature and then cautions that such
efforts are only temporary.

Poem 6: The following text is from Maggie Pogue Johnson’s 1910 poem “Poet of Our Race.” In this
poem, the speaker is addressing Paul Laurence Dunbar, a Black author.

Thou, with stroke of mighty pen,

Hast told of joy and mirth,

And read the hearts and souls of men

As cradled from their birth.

The language of the flowers,

Thou hast read them all,

And e’en the little brook

Responded to thy call.

Question 6: Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A. To praise a certain writer for being especially perceptive regarding people and nature

B. To establish that a certain writer has read extensively about a variety of topics

C. To call attention to a certain writer’s careful and elaborately detailed writing process

D. To recount fond memories of an afternoon spent in nature with a certain writer

Poem 7: The following is an excerpt from the poem “The House Where We Were Wed” by Will M.
Carleton

I’ve been to the old farm-house, good-wife,

Where you and I were wed;
Where the love was born to our two hearts
That now lies cold and dead.
Where a long-kept secret to you I told,
In the yellow beams of the moon,
And we forged our vows out of love’s own gold,
To be broken so soon, so soon!

Question 7: Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A. To tell someone of a trip made, in the light of a broken relationship.

B. To set the stage for a future argument.
C. To argue that marriage is a fruitless endeavor.
D. To help the reader feel the author’s pain after the death of his wife.

Poem 8: The following is the poem “Why Do Ye Call The Poet Lonely?” By Archibald Lampman
Why do ye call the poet lonely,
Because he dreams in lonely places?
He is not desolate, but only
Sees, where ye cannot, hidden faces.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A. It asks and answers a question about those who write poetry.

B. It hypothesizes as to what makes people want to write poetry.
C. It gives an explanation as to why much poetry is sad.
D. It opens up the reader to ask questions of poets.

Poem 9: A student reads “Old Man Travelling; Animal Tranquility and Decay, A Sketch” and
observes that the old man in the poem seems at great peace with his life.

Question 9: Which of the following excerpts from the poem best supports this claim?

A.”Sir! I am going many miles to take/A last leave of my son, a mariner,/ Who from a sea-
fight has been brought to Falmouth/ And there is dying in an hospital.”
B. “He travels on, and in his face, his step,/ His gait, is one expression;/ every limb,/ His look
and bending figure, all bespeak/ A man who does not move with pain.”
C. “He is one by whom/ All effort seems forgotten, one to whom/ Long patience has such
mild composure given/ That patience now doth seem a thing, of which/He hath no need. He
is by nature led.”
D. “The young behold/ With envy, what the old man hardly feels./ I asked him whither he
was bound, and what/ The object of his journey.”

Poem 10: The following is an excerpt from the poem “Expostulation and Reply”. The author
speaks to his friend, Matthew:

“The eye it cannot chuse but see,

“We cannot bid the ear be still;
“Our bodies feel, where’er they be,
“Against, or with our will.

“Nor less I deem that there are powers,

“Which of themselves our minds impress,
“That we can feed this mind of ours,
“In a wise passiveness.

“Think you, mid all this mighty sum

“Of things for ever speaking,
“That nothing of itself will come,
“But we must still be seeking?

“—Then ask not wherefore, here, alone,

“Conversing as I may,
“I sit upon this old grey stone,
“And dream my time away.”

Which choice best describes the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?

A. It questions the author’s purpose.

B. It asks Matthew a philosophical question.
C. It highlights a subject for which the author is passionate.
D. It explains an earlier statement.
Poem 11: The following is an excerpt from “The Dungeon” as published in Lyrical Ballads
With a Few Other Poems.

And this place our forefathers made for man!

This is the process of our love and wisdom,
To each poor brother who offends against us—
Most innocent, perhaps—and what if guilty?
Is this the only cure? Merciful God?
Each pore and natural outlet shrivell’d up
By ignorance and parching poverty,
His energies roll back upon his heart,
And stagnate and corrupt; till changed to poison,
They break out on him, like a loathsome plague-spot;
Then we call in our pamper’d mountebanks—
And this is their best cure! uncomforted
And friendless solitude, groaning and tears,
And savage faces, at the clanking hour,
Seen through the steams and vapour of his dungeon,
By the lamp’s dismal twilight! So he lies
Circled with evil, till his very soul
Unmoulds its essence, hopelessly deformed
By sights of ever more deformity!

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A. It examines the purpose of a dungeon form the point of view of a jailor.
B. It critiques a solution that society has found to a common issue.
C. It asks a question about the worth of humanity.
D. It sheds a negative light on how humanity handles a problem.

Poem 12: An instructor claims that “Lines Written in Early Spring” contains the introspective
thoughts of the author. Which quotation from the poem best supports this claim?

A. “And ‘tis my faith that every flower/Enjoys the air it breathes.”

B. “The birds around me hopp’d and play’d/ Their thoughts I cannot measure”
C. “In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts/ Bring sad thoughts to the mind.”
D. “I heard a thousand blended notes/While in a grove I sat reclined.”

Poem 13: The following is an excerpt from the poem “Apple Blossoms” by Will M. Carleton
Naught within her eyes he read
That would tell her mind unto him;
Though their light, he after said,
Quivered swiftly through and through him;
Till at last his heart burst free
From the prayer with which ‘twas laden,
And he said, “When wilt thou be
Mine for evermore, fair maiden?”

Which choice best describes the function of the underlined portion in the text as a whole?

A. To clarify the emotional source of the following quotation.

B. To explain a medical condition from which he is suffering.
C. To show the religious fervor with which he lives his life.
D. To build on the previous description of her eyes.

Poem 14: The following is an excerpt from the poem “We Wait” by Will M. Carleton

Or if upon the field of war we stand,

And sword with sword for mastery we mate,
Grim Death, and radiant Glory, hand in hand,
Approaching us with silent step we see;
And one of them, we vow, for us must be;
Bravely we strive to win renown’s estate,
And still we wait.
And when we grope within the gloom of age,
When our few steps grow feeble and sedate,
We cast our eyes back o’er a blotted page;
We peer among the pictures of the past,
We gaze upon the future, overcast;
Our musings all with hopes and fears we freight;
And still we wait.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

A. To illustrate the abeyancy of life, even as death approaches.

B. To force the reader to consider his own fate.
C. To illustrate the futility of war.
D. To explain the purposelessness of life.

Poem 15: A student claims that Will Carleton’s Poem “Autumn Days” contrasts the
sweetness of some autumn days in the first stanza with a far different type of autumn days
in the second stanza. What pair of lines from the first and second stanzas respectively best
illustrate this claim?

A. O’er the dreamy, listless haze/O’er the cheerless, withered plain.

B. Yellow, mellow, ripened days/ Shivering, quivering, tearful days.
C. And the sombre, furrowed fallow/ Woefully and hoarsely calling.
D. Winking at the blushing trees/On thy scanty vestments falling.