Topic Test Answers

Read the excerpt below from “The Lake of the Dismal Swamp” by Thomas Moore and complete the instruction that follows. “They made her a grave, too cold and dampFor a soul so warm and true;And she’s gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,Where, all night long, by a fire-fly lamp,She paddles her white canoe. “And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see,And her paddle I soon shall hear;Long and loving our life shall be,And I’ll hide the maid in a cypress tree,When the footstep of death is near.” Identify the rhyme scheme and metrical pattern of this poem.

Read the poems below and answer the question that follows. “Listening to Her Practice: My Middle Daughter, on the Edge of Adolescence, Learns to Play the Saxophone”by Barbara Cooker For Rebecca Her hair, that halo of red gold curls,has thickened, coarsened,lost its baby fineness,and the sweet smell of childhoodthat clung to her clotheshas just about vanished.Now she’s getting moody,moaning about her hair,clothes that aren’t the right brands,boys that tease.She clicks over the saxophone keyswith gritty fingernails polished in pink pearl,grass stains on the kneesof her sister’s old designer jeans.She’s gone from sounding like the smoke detectorthrough Old MacDonald and Jingle Bells.Soon she’ll master these keys,turn notes into liquid gold,wail that reedy brass.Soon, she’ll be a woman.She’s gonna learn to play the blues. Source: Cooker, Barbara. “Listening to Her Practice: My Middle Daughter, on the Edge of Adolescence, Learns to Play the Saxophe.” Ordinary Life. New York: ByLine Press, 2000. El Camino College. Web. 6 May 2011. “Hanging Fire”by Audre Lorde I am fourteenand my skin has betrayed methe boy I cannot live withoutstill sucks his thumbin secrethow come my knees arealways so ashywhat if I diebefore the morning comesand momma’s in the bedroomwith the door closed. I have to learn how to dancein time for the next partymy room is too small for mesuppose I die before graduationthey will sing sad melodiesbut finallytell the truth about meThere is nothing I want to doand too muchthat has to be doneand momma’s in the bedroomwith the door closed. Nobody even stops to thinkabout my side of itI should have been on Math Teammy marks were better than hiswhy do I have to bethe one wearing bracesI have nothing to wear tomorrowwill I live long enoughto grow upand momma’s in the bedroomwith the door closed. Source: Lorde, Audre. “Hanging Fire.” The Black Unicorn: Poems. New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1978. El Camino College. Web. 06 June 2011. Which statement is the most accurate comparison of the two poems?

Which of the following techniques is a specific type of figurative language? I. conceit II. personification III. metonymy

What is conflict?

Define imagery, give an example from your reading or of your own creation, and explain why imagery is used.

Read the excerpt below from the short story “The Bet” by Anton P. Chekhov and answer the question that follows. During the first year of imprisonment, the lawyer, as far as it was possible to judge from his short notes, suffered terribly from loneliness and boredom. From his wing day and night came the sound of the piano. He rejected wine and tobacco. “Wine,” he wrote, “excites desires, and desires are the chief foes of a prisoner; besides, nothing is more boring than to drink good wine alone,” and tobacco spoils the air in his room. Which type of conflict occurs in the excerpt above?

Which statement illustrates the use of metaphor?

What is the definition of “ballad”?

Read the poem below and answer the question that follows. “Apostrophe to Man”by Edna St. Vincent Millay (On reflecting that the worldis ready to go to war again) Detestable race, continue to expunge yourself, die out.Breed faster, crowd, encroach, sing hymns, build bombing airplanes;Make speeches, unveil statues, issue bonds, parade;Convert again into explosives the bewildered ammoniaand the distracted cellulose;Convert again into putrescent matter drawing fliesThe hopeful bodies of the young; exhort,Pray, pull long faces, be earnest,be all but overcome, be photographed;Confer, perfect your formulae, commercializeBacteria harmful to human tissue,Put death on the market;Breed, crowd, encroach,expand, expunge yourself, die out,Homo called sapiens. Source: Millay, Edna St. Vincent. “Apostrophe to Man.” American Poems. Gunnar Bengtsson, n.d. Web. 7 June 2011. Discuss how word choice affects the mood of this poem.

Define the ballad form and explain the difference between a literary ballad and a folk ballad.

Read the excerpt below from Sonnet X by John Donne and answer the question that follows. Death be not proud, though some have called theeMighty and dreadful, for, thou are not so . . . . Source: Donne, John. “Sonnet X.” Bartleby.com. Bartleby.com, n.d. Web. 8 June 2011. Explain the poetic techniques used in the opening lines of John Donne’s Sonnet X.

Read the excerpt below from the poem “Ulalume” by Edgar Allan Poe and answer the question that follows. The skies they were ashen and sober;The leaves they were crispéd and sere—The leaves they were withering and sere;It was night in the lonesome OctoberOf my most immemorial year;It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,In the misty mid region of Weir—It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. Here once, through an alley Titanic,Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul—Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.These were days when my heart was volcanicAs the scoriac rivers that roll—As the lavas that restlessly rollTheir sulphurous currents down YaanekIn the ultimate climes of the pole—That groan as they roll down Mount YaanekIn the realms of the boreal pole. Our talk had been serious and sober,But our thoughts they were palsied and sere—Our memories were treacherous and sere—For we knew not the month was October,And we marked not the night of the year—(Ah, night of all nights in the year!)We noted not the dim lake of Auber—(Though once we had journeyed down here)—We remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. Source: Poe, Edgar Allan. “Ulalume.” Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 24 June 2011. Identify at least one example each of alliteration, assonance, consonance, and imagery. Discuss the effect of these devices.

Read the excerpt below from “The Ball Poem” by John Berryman and answer the question that follows. What is the boy now, who has lost his ball,What, what is he to do? I saw it goMerrily bouncing, down the street, and thenMerrily over—there it is in the water!No use to say ‘O there are other balls’ Source: Berryman, John. “The Ball Poem.” Collected Poems: 1937 – 1971. Ed. Charles Thornbury. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991. Google Books. Web. 06 June 2011. What is the structure of this poem?

Read the excerpt below from the short story “The Bet” by Anton P. Chekhov and complete the instruction that follows. “You are mad, and gone the wrong way. You take falsehood for truth and ugliness for beauty. You would marvel if suddenly apple and orange trees should bear frogs and lizards instead of fruit, and if roses should begin to breathe the odor of a sweating horse. So do I marvel at you, who have bartered heaven for earth. I do not want to understand you . . . .” Identify how Chekhov’s background and beliefs may have influenced his short story “The Bet.”

Which poetic technique does Crapsey use when she speaks directly to the dead in her poem “To the Dead in the Graveyard Underneath My Window”?