Attack (Sassoon poem) Quizzes

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

First-person

Second and third-person

Third-person

Second-person
2 Describe the speaker.

The speaker is Sassoon himself.

The speaker is a commanding officer.

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.
3 How many lines does the poem have?

12

14

13

11
4 What poetic form does "Attack" most closely resemble?

Sestina

Epic

Villanelle

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

Love poem

Shakespeare

Aubade

Sonnet
6 Describe the sunlight in the poem.

Bright purple, glowing

Strong and blinding

Pale yellow, filtering

Wild purple, glowering
7 Define "dun"

A bright green color

The state of being finished

Of a dull grayish-brown color.

A horse
8 What first emerges in the morning light?

The soldiers

The trench

The ridge

The tanks
9 Which is not an example of alliteration?

The barrage roars and lifts

time ticks blank and busy

Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud

The menacing scarred slope
10 What is alliteration?

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

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

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.
11 Why are the soldiers "clumsily bowed"?

They are weighed down by gear.

They are deathly afraid.

They bow to their superiors

They have been crippled.
12 What is a barrage?

A place where military gear is stored

Soldiers' accommodations

A battlefield

A concentrated artillery bombardment over a wide area
13 What does not get personified in the poem?

Hope

The mud

The slope

The sunlight
14 Which is example of personification?

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

Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,

They leave their trenches, going over the top,

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 attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form

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.
16 What is the form?

Blank verse

Free verse

Iambic pentameter, with some exceptions in syllabic stress

Strict iambic pentameter
17 Finish this quote: "While time ticks__"

blank and brutal on their wrists

in their chests

meaninglessly

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

God

His mother

His commanders

Jesus
19 What is the tone?

Pointed, Angry, Violent

Eerie, Desperate, Violent

Bitter, Tragic, Reflective

Acerbic, Violent, Uncanny
20 Which detail best foreshadows the violence to come?

Men jostle and climb to

The scarred slope is menacing

The dawn light makes the ridge visible

The smoke smolders
21 Which of the following is used in the poem?

Understatement

Hyperbole

Onomatopoeia

Personification
22 Which collection was this poem published in?

Collected Poems

The War Poems

Counter-Attack and Other Poems

The Old Huntsman
23 How was the collection received?

Well, due to its truthful and harrowing accounts of World War I.

Poorly, Sassoon was then hospitalized for shell shock

Well, though Sassoon was then hospitalized for shell shock

Poorly, as the details were too grotesque
24 Which of the following is not a theme?

Explicitly Criticizing the British Public

The Horrors of Warfare

Nature

Anonymity
25 Which line best demonstrates the theme of Anonymity?

Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,

The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one,

Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud

And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists

Attack (Sassoon poem)

by Siegfried Sassoon

Attack (Sassoon poem) Quiz

Attack (Sassoon poem) Questions and Answers

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