Attack (Sassoon poem) Quizzes

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

Second-person

Third-person

Second and third-person

First-person
2 Describe the speaker.

The speaker is Sassoon himself.

The speaker is a commanding officer.

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 a soldier who experiences shell shock as a result of the bristling fire.
3 How many lines does the poem have?

12

14

11

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

Epic

Sonnet

Villanelle

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

Sonnet

Love poem

Shakespeare

Aubade
6 Describe the sunlight in the poem.

Wild purple, glowering

Strong and blinding

Pale yellow, filtering

Bright purple, glowing
7 Define "dun"

The state of being finished

Of a dull grayish-brown color.

A bright green color

A horse
8 What first emerges in the morning light?

The trench

The tanks

The soldiers

The ridge
9 Which is not an example of alliteration?

The barrage roars and lifts

Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud

The menacing scarred slope

time ticks blank and busy
10 What is alliteration?

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.

The use of "like" or "as" to make a comparison.
11 Why are the soldiers "clumsily bowed"?

They are deathly afraid.

They bow to their superiors

They have been crippled.

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

Soldiers' accommodations

A place where military gear is stored

A battlefield

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

The sunlight

The slope

Hope

The mud
14 Which is example of personification?

They leave their trenches, going over the top,

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

Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,

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

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.

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.
16 What is the form?

Strict iambic pentameter

Iambic pentameter, with some exceptions in syllabic stress

Free verse

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

meaninglessly

blank and brutal on their wrists

in their chests

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?

Bitter, Tragic, Reflective

Eerie, Desperate, Violent

Acerbic, Violent, Uncanny

Pointed, Angry, Violent
20 Which detail best foreshadows the violence to come?

The smoke smolders

The scarred slope is menacing

Men jostle and climb to

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

Onomatopoeia

Personification

Understatement

Hyperbole
22 Which collection was this poem published in?

The War Poems

The Old Huntsman

Counter-Attack and Other Poems

Collected Poems
23 How was the collection received?

Poorly, as the details were too grotesque

Poorly, Sassoon was then hospitalized for shell shock

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

Well, though Sassoon was then hospitalized for shell shock
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?

Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,

Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud

And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists

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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