Question

Read the poem.

Seacoast Silhouette

All up and down the dunes,

the tall green grasses dance,

as the wind plays lively tunes

across the sandy expanse.

But the moon above is a statue, 5

silent and somber and still,

its reflection on the sea is a tattoo,

that we watch from upon the hill.

How does personification affect the mood of the first stanza?

A. It gives the stanza a peaceful, relaxed mood.

B. It gives the stanza an energetic, active mood.

C. It creates a melancholy, gloomy mood.

D. It creates an anxious, tense mood.

Answer 1

The first stanza uses phrases like "green grasses dance" and "lively tunes". Which answer do you think best describes the mood of that section?

Answer 2

the answer is B

Answer 3

Yeah, I think you got it

Answer 4

How does the alliteration in line 6 affect the poem's tone?


A. It creates a sinister tone that emphasizes the eeriness of the moon.

B. It creates a harsh tone that emphasizes the brightness of the moon.

C. It creates an elusive tone that emphasizes how foreign the moon is.

D. It creates a soft and tranquil tone that emphasizes the moon's quietness.

Answer 5

For this one, I think I'd go with D, since most of the words in line 6 relate to that description

Answer 6

Read the poem.

To Winter
by William Blake

“O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors:
The north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark
Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs,
Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.”

He hears me not, but o’er the yawning deep
Rides heavy; his storms are unchain’d, sheathed
In ribbed steel; I dare not lift mine eyes,
For he hath rear’d his sceptre o’er the world.

Lo! now the direful monster, whose skin clings
To his strong bones, strides o’er the groaning rocks:
He withers all in silence, and his hand
Unclothes the earth, and freezes up frail life.

He takes his seat upon the cliffs; the mariner
Cries in vain. Poor little wretch! that deal’st
With storms, till heaven smiles, and the monster
Is driv’n yelling to his caves beneath mount Hecla.


adamantine: unbreakable

sheathed: encased

sceptre: a staff symbolizing power

withers: shrinks; enfeebles

mount Hecla: an Icelandic volcano that was believed to be a gateway to hell
How does the personification of winter affect the tone of this poem?

A. It creates a hostile tone, as if the speaker is addressing an enemy.

B. It creates a somber tone, as if the speaker mourns an old friend.

C. It creates a distrustful tone, as if the speaker thinks he is being fooled.

D. It creates a nervous tone, as if the speaker fears what might happen next.

Answer 7

I think winter is being compared to a monster in the passage. So, I'd probably go with option A

Answer 8

Read the poem.

Come Up From the Fields, Father
excerpt from Drum-Taps
by Walt Whitman

Come up from the fields father, here’s a letter from our Pete,
And come to the front door mother, here’s a letter from thy
dear son.

Lo, ’tis autumn,
Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder,
Cool and sweeten Ohio’s villages, with leaves fluttering in the
moderate wind,
Where apples ripe in the orchards hang and grapes on the
trellis’d vines,
(Smell you the smell of the grapes on the vines?
Smell you the buckwheat where the bees were lately buzzing?)

Above all, lo, the sky so calm, so transparent after the rain, and with
wondrous clouds,
Below too, all calm, all vital and beautiful, and the farm
prospers well.

Down in the fields all prospers well,
But now from the fields come father, come at the daughter’s call,
And come to the entry mother, to the front door come right away.

Fast as she can she hurries, something ominous, her steps trembling,
She does not tarry to smooth her hair nor adjust her cap.

Open the envelope quickly,
O this is not our son’s writing, yet his name is sign’d,
O a strange hand writes for our dear son, O stricken
mother’s soul!

All swims before her eyes, flashes with black, she catches the
main words only,
Sentences broken, gunshot wound in the breast, cavalry
skirmish, taken to hospital,
At present low, but will soon be better.

Ah now the single figure to me,
Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio with all its cities and
farms,
Sickly white in the face and dull in the head, very faint,
By the jamb of a door leans.

Grieve not so, dear mother, (the just-grown daughter speaks
through her sobs,
The little sisters huddle around speechless and dismay’d,)
See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better.

Alas poor boy, he will never be better, (nor maybe needs to be
better, that brave and simple soul,)
While they stand at home at the door he is dead already,
The only son is dead.

But the mother needs to be better,
She with thin form presently drest in black,
By day her meals untouch’d, then at night fitfully sleeping,
often waking,
In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep
longing,
O that she might withdraw unnoticed, silent from life escape
and withdraw,
To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son.

Which statement best explains how the imagery in Stanza 4 affects the tone of the poem?

A. It shows the mother is nervous and sets a disheartening tone.

B. It creates a sense of urgency and worry and sets a concerned tone.

C. It creates a tense atmosphere and sets a threatening tone.

D. It shows the mother is moving quickly and sets an optimistic tone.

Answer 9

I think the fourth stanza marks a shift in the poem, where something wrong is hinted at without being stated yet. I think C, "a tense atmosphere" would be the best for that.

Answer 10

How does the language in Stanza 2 evoke a sense of the time and the place in which this poem is set?

A. It describes the such minute and excessive detail that it make readers feel as though the action is taking place wholly in the speaker's mind.

B. It uses vivid language and vibrant images to capture the appearance of an Ohio farm in the autumn.

C. It includes odd phrasing about smelling the crops to create a disorienting sense that this poem is set in an unfamiliar time and place.

D. It uses words that are derived from languages other than English to indicate that this farm exists in a country other than the United States.

Answer 11

I think B probably makes the most sense here

Answer 12

Read the poem that celebrates mountain climbing.

To the Mountains

Let there be light, the sky

Declares. And the sun answers.

Yellow ribbons cascade across

A serrated skyline, filling each valley

Until it bursts.



Alpine mornings wake in defiance

Of gravity. The rock opens its hands,

Draws men up, through the light.

Distant summits, where the earth

Meets the heavens.



The earth shifts through each ribbon,

Like water, an ocean of rock

Braced against, all that space.

Where men drift, a sea above and below,

And reach.


Part A

What is the connotative meaning of yellow ribbons cascade in the first stanza?


A. shadows fall


B. stars descend


C. sunlight floods


D. lightning crashes


Part B

How does the connotative meaning of yellow ribbons cascade, identified in Part A, affect the mood of the poem?


A. It creates a welcoming mood as climbers prepare for the ascent.


B. It suggests a somber mood as shade covers the mountains.


C. It sets a cautious mood as a storm moves over the mountains.


D. It develops a peaceful mood as the sun begins to set.

Answer 13

I think the "yellow ribbons" refer to sunlight, since the line comes right after the previous line "the sun answers".
For the second part, I think A makes the most sense. The sun is rising, not setting, since the sun is bringing light in the poem.

Answer 14

Read the speech.

Abraham Lincoln
Second Inaugural Address
Saturday, March 4, 1865

President Lincoln gave his second inaugural address in March 1865. The Civil War had been raging for years, and hundreds of thousands of Americans were dead. The war was nearly over, but President Lincoln would not see the country reunited. He was assassinated in April 1865.

Fellow-Countrymen:

At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Which statement best describes how Lincoln develops the theme that Americans must reconcile in order to heal the nation?

A. Lincoln speaks of binding up the nation's wounds and taking care of one another once hostilities cease rather than placing blame or punishing those responsible for the war.


B. Lincoln explains why the war was justified from the Union perspective, asserting that their victory was preordained by God, who abhors the evils of slavery.


C. Lincoln asserts this theme in the very beginning of his speech when he declares there is little to discuss now that the war is over and national unity has been reestablished.


D. Lincoln expresses remorse for how many people died, hinting at his regret and his acceptance that his political views contributed to the outbreak of war.

Answer 15

I think A is most related to the theme of reconciling differences and healing old wounds.

Answer 16

Barter

By Sara Teasdale

Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up
Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit's still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.

What is the meaning of “Barter”? How does the author’s word choice, figurative language, and use of poetic devices convey the meaning and the tone? Use evidence from the text to support your response. Your response should be one or two complete paragraphs.

Answer 17

Well, "barter" means to trade, but I think I'll have to leave it mostly to you to interpret and analyze the poem itself. I can't very well write your paragraphs for you, haha

Answer 18

It is distinguishable from gift economies in many ways; one of them is that the reciprocal exchange is immediate and not delayed in time. Also, the barter system was something where you would trade things in to people and given something back in return.

could you check over and see how could it go in your words

Answer 19

I think that makes sense, but remember that the question asks "How does the author’s word choice, figurative language, and use of poetic devices convey the meaning and the tone?"
Make sure to focus on that in a way that answers the prompt question

Answer 20

Line 3 gives us the color blue, but just as we are imagining the blue waves, they are "whitened" when they crash into a cliff.
The alliteration, those repeated W sounds, sort of mirror the movement and uniformity of the waves (notice how your mouth has to make the same shape twice to make those W sounds) and then everything changes with the hard C sound of cliff. The Ws crash into the C

But Teasdale short-circuits the sentimentality by ending the description with kind of a weird simile. She tells us that the children's faces hold wonder "like a cup." Hmmm. We haven't heard that before.


now could you check over and see about in your words

Answer 21

Well, I think what you've written sounds pretty good. There's nothing in particular I'd really change