Attack (Sassoon poem) Quizzes

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

Second-person

First-person

Second and third-person

Third-person
2 Describe the speaker.

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.

The speaker is a commanding officer.

The speaker is Sassoon himself.
3 How many lines does the poem have?

11

12

14

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

Sonnet

Epic

Villanelle

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

Sonnet

Shakespeare

Love poem

Aubade
6 Describe the sunlight in the poem.

Wild purple, glowering

Bright purple, glowing

Strong and blinding

Pale yellow, filtering
7 Define "dun"

The state of being finished

A bright green color

Of a dull grayish-brown color.

A horse
8 What first emerges in the morning light?

The tanks

The trench

The soldiers

The ridge
9 Which is not an example of alliteration?

time ticks blank and busy

The menacing scarred slope

The barrage roars and lifts

Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud
10 What is alliteration?

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

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

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 are weighed down by gear.

They bow to their superiors

They are deathly afraid.

They have been crippled.
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 mud

Hope

The sunlight

The slope
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

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 occurrence of a poet humanizing someone.

The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words
16 What is the form?

Iambic pentameter, with some exceptions in syllabic stress

Blank verse

Strict iambic pentameter

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

in their chests

blank and brutal on their wrists

blank and busy on their wrists

meaninglessly
18 Who does the speaker plead to in the final line?

His commanders

Jesus

His mother

God
19 What is the tone?

Acerbic, Violent, Uncanny

Bitter, Tragic, Reflective

Pointed, Angry, Violent

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

Men jostle and climb to

The scarred slope is menacing

The smoke smolders

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

Personification

Understatement

Hyperbole

Onomatopoeia
22 Which collection was this poem published in?

The Old Huntsman

Counter-Attack and Other Poems

Collected Poems

The War Poems
23 How was the collection received?

Poorly, as the details were too grotesque

Poorly, Sassoon was then hospitalized for shell shock

Well, though 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

Nature

Anonymity

The Horrors of Warfare
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,

The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one,

Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud

Attack (Sassoon poem)

by Siegfried Sassoon

Attack (Sassoon poem) Quiz

Attack (Sassoon poem) Questions and Answers

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