Attack (Sassoon poem) Quizzes

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

Second-person

Second and third-person

First-person

Third-person
2 Describe the speaker.

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.

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

14

11

13

12
4 What poetic form does "Attack" most closely resemble?

Sonnet

Sestina

Epic

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

Shakespeare

Love poem

Aubade

Sonnet
6 Describe the sunlight in the poem.

Pale yellow, filtering

Wild purple, glowering

Bright purple, glowing

Strong and blinding
7 Define "dun"

Of a dull grayish-brown color.

A horse

A bright green color

The state of being finished
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 menacing scarred slope

time ticks blank and busy

Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud

The barrage roars and lifts
10 What is alliteration?

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

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

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

They have been crippled.

They are weighed down by gear.

They bow to their superiors

They are deathly afraid.
12 What is a barrage?

Soldiers' accommodations

A battlefield

A place where military gear is stored

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

The slope

The sunlight

The mud

Hope
14 Which is example of personification?

Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,

They leave their trenches, going over the top,

At dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun

And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists, / Flounders in mud
15 What is personification?

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

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

Strict iambic pentameter

Blank verse

Free verse

Iambic pentameter, with some exceptions in syllabic stress
17 Finish this quote: "While time ticks__"

in their chests

blank and busy on their wrists

blank and brutal on their wrists

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

Jesus

His mother

His commanders

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?

The smoke smolders

Men jostle and climb to

The dawn light makes the ridge visible

The scarred slope is menacing
21 Which of the following is used in the poem?

Onomatopoeia

Hyperbole

Understatement

Personification
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?

Well, though Sassoon was then hospitalized for shell shock

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.
24 Which of the following is not a theme?

Nature

Anonymity

The Horrors of Warfare

Explicitly Criticizing the British Public
25 Which line best demonstrates the theme of Anonymity?

Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud

Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,

The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one,

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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