The Arrival of the Bee Box Quizzes

The Arrival of the Bee Box Quiz

1 Who is the poem's speaker?
Somebody who has just ordered a box full of bees

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

A bee who lives on a farm

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

Creativity and individuality

Hard work and piety

Poverty and monasticism
3 What is the meaning of the word "colonnade"?
A military parade

A row of columns

A colonial outpost

A dessert made of fruit
4 Which writer did NOT use bees as a symbol or allegory?
John Greenleaf Whittier

Mary Leapor

Fanny Burney

John Mandeville
5 What are the bees probably NOT intended to symbolize in this poem?
Sexual aggression

Familial demands on women

The speaker's thoughts

Climate change
6 Where does the poem most likely take place?
A field of flowers

An industrial honey farm

The speaker's home

A school
7 Which collection was this poem a part of?
The Colossus

Double Exposure

The Bell Jar

Ariel
8 How does the work's final stanza most clearly differ from the others?
It is the only part that does not rhyme

It is spoken by a different speaker

It is written in a different meter

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

closed my eyes

turned into a tree
10 Which is an example of irony?
The speaker's feeling of temptation despite the danger of the bees

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

The speaker's comparison of herself to God

The amount of noise that the bees make
11 Fill in the blank: It is the noise that _____ me most of all,
intrigues

distracts

appalls

ensnares
12 What does the speaker NOT compare the box to?
A chair

A baby

A tent

A coffin
13 How many stanzas are in the poem?
3

9

7

5
14 The speaker compares the bees to a mob from where?
Victorian Britain

Ancient Rome

Revolutionary America

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

A kitchen counter

A diploma

A New England company
16 What is the meaning of the word "din"?
Hillside

Dinner

Sunset

Noise
17 Which best describes the poem's portrayal of power?
The speaker loses her power when she buys the bees and gives up her job

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

It has no set meter

Anapestic tetrameter

Iambic pentameter
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?
intimacy and love

alternating fascination and fear

self-effacing admiration

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

Sestets

Tercets

The stanzas are unmatched
22 How is the theme of femininity discussed in the poem?
The poem subtly equates the speaker's fear of the bees with women's fear of violence or subjugation

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

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

The queen bee represents the feminists of the twentieth century
23 Which mythological figure is alluded to in the poem?
Daphne

Hercules

Persephone

Narcissus
24 What do the trees most closely symbolize?
The speaker's ambivalence

Strength

The abundance of nature

Escape from conflict
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"

"They can die, I can feed them nothing"

"In my moon suit and funeral veil"

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