The Arrival of the Bee Box Quizzes

The Arrival of the Bee Box Quiz

1 Who is the poem's speaker?

A bee who lives on a farm

A grieving husband participating in the custom of "telling the bees"

Somebody who has just ordered a box full of bees

A writer comparing her words to swarming bees
2 Broadly speaking, what did bees symbolize in seventeenth-century Europe?

Creativity and individuality

Hard work and piety

Poverty and monasticism

Noisiness and immorality
3 What is the meaning of the word "colonnade"?

A colonial outpost

A dessert made of fruit

A military parade

A row of columns
4 Which writer did NOT use bees as a symbol or allegory?

Fanny Burney

Mary Leapor

John Mandeville

John Greenleaf Whittier
5 What are the bees probably NOT intended to symbolize in this poem?

Climate change

Familial demands on women

Sexual aggression

The speaker's thoughts
6 Where does the poem most likely take place?

A field of flowers

A school

The speaker's home

An industrial honey farm
7 Which collection was this poem a part of?

The Colossus

Ariel

The Bell Jar

Double Exposure
8 How does the work's final stanza most clearly differ from the others?

It is written in a different meter

It is spoken by a different speaker

It is the only part that does not rhyme

It is only one line long
9 Fill in the blank: I wonder if they would forget me/If I just undid the locks and stood back and _______"

died

ran away

turned into a tree

closed my eyes
10 Which is an example of irony?

The speaker's comparison of herself to God

The amount of noise that the bees make

The speaker's ability to keep her bees alive or let them die

The speaker's feeling of temptation despite the danger of the bees
11 Fill in the blank: It is the noise that _____ me most of all,

distracts

appalls

ensnares

intrigues
12 What does the speaker NOT compare the box to?

A chair

A coffin

A baby

A tent
13 How many stanzas are in the poem?

5

7

3

9
14 The speaker compares the bees to a mob from where?

Ancient Rome

Victorian Britain

Revolutionary America

The Old West
15 What is the meaning of the word "laburnum"?

A kitchen counter

A type of tree

A New England company

A diploma
16 What is the meaning of the word "din"?

Dinner

Noise

Hillside

Sunset
17 Which best describes the poem's portrayal of power?

The speaker struggles to decide whether it is she or the bees who holds disproportionate power

The speaker struggles for power, but is no match for nature

The speaker loses her power when she buys the bees and gives up her job

The bees' power comes from their cleanliness and cooperativeness
18 What is the poem's meter?

Iambic pentameter

Dactylic pentameter

It has no set meter

Anapestic tetrameter
19 What best describes the poem's conflict?

The bee's decision about whether to sting the human

The speaker's fight against the queen bee

The speaker's decision about whether to free the bees

The beekeeper's conflict with the industrialist
20 What best describes the speaker's feelings about the bees?

alternating fascination and fear

self-effacing admiration

intimacy and love

maddening irritation
21 What type of stanzas appear in the poem?

Tercets

Couplets

Sestets

The stanzas are unmatched
22 How is the theme of femininity discussed in the poem?

The queen bee represents the feminists of the twentieth century

The speaker's desire to engage with insects hints at a need to escape human gender norms

The bees' collaboration suggests that only collaboration between women will better their lot

The poem subtly equates the speaker's fear of the bees with women's fear of violence or subjugation
23 Which mythological figure is alluded to in the poem?

Persephone

Hercules

Narcissus

Daphne
24 What do the trees most closely symbolize?

The abundance of nature

Escape from conflict

The speaker's ambivalence

Strength
25 Which of the following is a metaphor?

"There is only a little grid, no exit"

"Square as a chair and almost too heavy to lift"

"In my moon suit and funeral veil"

"They can die, I can feed them nothing"

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