Attack (Sassoon poem) Quizzes

1 Which point(s) of view is/are used in the poem?

First-person

Third-person

Second and third-person

Second-person
2 Describe the speaker.

The speaker is a soldier who experiences shell shock as a result of the bristling fire.

An unidentified speaker witnesses a battle taking place. The final plea to Jesus to stop the violence indicates that the speaker is either participating in the battle, or is speaking on behalf of the soldiers.

The speaker is Sassoon himself.

The speaker is a commanding officer.
3 How many lines does the poem have?

11

14

12

13
4 What poetic form does "Attack" most closely resemble?

Epic

Villanelle

Sestina

Sonnet
5 What kinds of poems deal with morning and the departure of lovers?

Shakespeare

Aubade

Sonnet

Love poem
6 Describe the sunlight in the poem.

Strong and blinding

Wild purple, glowering

Pale yellow, filtering

Bright purple, glowing
7 Define "dun"

The state of being finished

Of a dull grayish-brown color.

A horse

A bright green color
8 What first emerges in the morning light?

The tanks

The soldiers

The trench

The ridge
9 Which is not an example of alliteration?

time ticks blank and busy

Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud

The menacing scarred slope

The barrage roars and lifts
10 What is alliteration?

The use of "like" or "as" to make a comparison.

The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words

A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.

The repetition of the sound of a vowel or diphthong in nonrhyming stressed syllables near enough to each other for the echo to be discernible
11 Why are the soldiers "clumsily bowed"?

They have been crippled.

They are deathly afraid.

They bow to their superiors

They are weighed down by gear.
12 What is a barrage?

A concentrated artillery bombardment over a wide area

Soldiers' accommodations

A battlefield

A place where military gear is stored
13 What does not get personified in the poem?

The slope

The mud

The sunlight

Hope
14 Which is example of personification?

Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,

They leave their trenches, going over the top,

And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists, / Flounders in mud

At dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun
15 What is personification?

The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words

The occurrence of a poet humanizing someone.

A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.

The attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form
16 What is the form?

Strict iambic pentameter

Free verse

Iambic pentameter, with some exceptions in syllabic stress

Blank verse
17 Finish this quote: "While time ticks__"

in their chests

meaninglessly

blank and busy on their wrists

blank and brutal on their wrists
18 Who does the speaker plead to in the final line?

Jesus

God

His mother

His commanders
19 What is the tone?

Acerbic, Violent, Uncanny

Pointed, Angry, Violent

Bitter, Tragic, Reflective

Eerie, Desperate, Violent
20 Which detail best foreshadows the violence to come?

The smoke smolders

Men jostle and climb to

The scarred slope is menacing

The dawn light makes the ridge visible
21 Which of the following is used in the poem?

Understatement

Onomatopoeia

Hyperbole

Personification
22 Which collection was this poem published in?

Collected Poems

The Old Huntsman

The War Poems

Counter-Attack and Other Poems
23 How was the collection received?

Poorly, as the details were too grotesque

Well, though Sassoon was then hospitalized for shell shock

Poorly, Sassoon was then hospitalized for shell shock

Well, due to its truthful and harrowing accounts of World War I.
24 Which of the following is not a theme?

Explicitly Criticizing the British Public

Anonymity

The Horrors of Warfare

Nature
25 Which line best demonstrates the theme of Anonymity?

And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists

Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,

Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud

The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one,

Attack (Sassoon poem)

by Siegfried Sassoon

Attack (Sassoon poem) Quiz

Attack (Sassoon poem) Questions and Answers

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