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?
Noisiness and immorality

Hard work and piety

Poverty and monasticism

Creativity and individuality
3 What is the meaning of the word "colonnade"?
A row of columns

A military parade

A dessert made of fruit

A colonial outpost
4 Which writer did NOT use bees as a symbol or allegory?
Mary Leapor

John Mandeville

John Greenleaf Whittier

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

Climate change

The speaker's thoughts

Familial demands on women
6 Where does the poem most likely take place?
An industrial honey farm

The speaker's home

A school

A field of flowers
7 Which collection was this poem a part of?
The Bell Jar

Double Exposure

The Colossus

Ariel
8 How does the work's final stanza most clearly differ from the others?
It is only one line long

It is the only part that does not rhyme

It is written in a different meter

It is spoken by a different speaker
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 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,
ensnares

intrigues

appalls

distracts
12 What does the speaker NOT compare the box to?
A tent

A coffin

A baby

A chair
13 How many stanzas are in the poem?
7

5

3

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

Ancient Rome

Victorian Britain

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

A diploma

A New England company

A type of tree
16 What is the meaning of the word "din"?
Sunset

Dinner

Noise

Hillside
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 bees' power comes from their cleanliness and cooperativeness

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
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 speaker's decision about whether to free the bees

The beekeeper's conflict with the industrialist

The speaker's fight against the queen bee

The bee's decision about whether to sting the human
20 What best describes the speaker's feelings about the bees?
maddening irritation

intimacy and love

self-effacing admiration

alternating fascination and fear
21 What type of stanzas appear in the poem?
Couplets

The stanzas are unmatched

Tercets

Sestets
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

Narcissus

Hercules

Persephone
24 What do the trees most closely symbolize?
Strength

The speaker's ambivalence

The abundance of nature

Escape from conflict
25 Which of the following is a metaphor?
"In my moon suit and funeral veil"

"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"

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