The Death Bed Quizzes

The Death Bed Quiz

1 Which best describes the poem's speaker?
Omniscient, third-person; addresses the soldier using second-person

All-knowing, first-person, addresses the reader using second-person

Unidentified, third-person

Omniscient, third-person; addresses the reader using second-person
2 Describe the form.
Six sextets

Seven stanzas composed of different lengths

Six stanzas composed of different lengths

Seven sextets
3 What senses are engaged in this poem?
Auditory, gustatory, olfactory

Visual

Visual, tactile, auditory

All senses
4 Which of the following is not a metaphor in the poem?
Water

"in the wings of sleep"

"silence heaped / Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls"

"his mortal shore / Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death"
5 Which best describes a metaphor?
A word or phrase used in a non-literal sense for rhetorical or vivid effec

A description of one thing by way of another, unrelated thing

A comparison between two things that are otherwise unrelated using the words "like" or "as"

The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words
6 Which is not an example of alliteration?
"And there was silence in the summer night; / Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep"

"That soak the woods; not the harsh rain"

"Silence and safety"

"Light many lamps and gather round his bed. / Lend him your...will to live"
7 What is alliteration?
A comparison between two things that are otherwise unrelated using the words "like" or "as"

A comparison between two things that are otherwise unrelated

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

A word or phrase used in a non-literal sense for rhetorical or vivid effect
8 What is the reader implored to do?
Row down a river.

Enlist and fight.

Protest the war by writing letters.

Care for the dying soldier's physical and energetic needs.
9 What is the major conflict of the poem?
World War One

World War Two

Whether or not the young soldier will encounter his death

Death does not care about justice
10 Which quote best foreshadows the soldier's death?
"Shuddering because that evil thing had passed."

"He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped"

"Gently and slowly washing life away"

"Rain—he could hear it rustling through the dark;"
11 Which is an example of onomatopoeia?
trickling

thudding

music

flickered
12 What collection was this poem published in?
The Daffodil Murderer

The Old Huntsman and Other Poems

Counter-Attack and Other Poems

The War Poems of Sigfried Sassoon
13 What is Sassoon best known for today?
His novels

His angry and compassionate anti-war poems

His romantic pastoral poetry

His satires
14 Which fellow soldier-poet named "The Death Bed" as the "finest poem" in the collection?
Isaac Rosenberg

Robert Graves

Wilfred Owen

Rupert Brooke
15 Which of the following is not a theme in the poem?
Criticizing the Military Establishment

Satirizing military authority

Death and Sleep as a Journey

Mortality
16 Who or what is personified in the poem?
an animal that broke into the ward

death and the soldier's pain

the soldier

death
17 What is personification?
A word or phrase used in a non-literal sense for rhetorical or vivid effect

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

A comparison between two things that are otherwise unrelated using the words "like" or "as"

The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words
18 What does water symbolize?
The fluid state of the soldier's consciousness

Summertime

Tranquility

The soldier's acceptance of his death
19 Why are the guns at the end specified as "the"?
They refer to the conflict of World War II

They refer to the conflict of World War I

There is no reason for the specification

They refer to the guns the soldier used in battle
20 Why is death not capitalized in the poem?
Death is capitalized in the poem

Unspecified, but perhaps to suggest a humble sense

Because it is an inanimate process.

Unspecified, but perhaps to suggest a weak sense
21 Where in the poem does Sassoon clarify that the drowsing man is dying?
Never

In the first stanza

In the final line

In the second-to-last stanza
22 Which words become an anaphora?
Water and night

Summer and night

Light and summer

Water and summer
23 Finish this quote: "Lipped by the inward, moonless__"
night sky

starless sky

waves of pain

waves of death
24 What is anaphora?
The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses.

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

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

A comparison between two things that are otherwise unrelated
25 Why does the speaker give a false sense of hope that the soldier will live?
To cruelly trick the reader

To show that justice prevails when there is hope

To increase the poem's tension by prolonging the death

To show that there is always hope

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