The Death Bed Quizzes

1 Which best describes the poem's speaker?

Omniscient, third-person; addresses the soldier using second-person

Omniscient, third-person; addresses the reader using second-person

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

Unidentified, third-person
2 Describe the form.

Seven sextets

Six sextets

Six stanzas composed of different lengths

Seven stanzas composed of different lengths
3 What senses are engaged in this poem?

Visual

Auditory, gustatory, olfactory

Visual, tactile, auditory

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

"his mortal shore / Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death"

"in the wings of sleep"

Water

"silence heaped / Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls"
5 Which best describes a metaphor?

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

A word or phrase used in a non-literal sense for rhetorical or vivid effec

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

A description of one thing by way of another, unrelated thing
6 Which is not an example of alliteration?

"And there was silence in the summer night; / Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep"

"Silence and safety"

"That soak the woods; not the harsh rain"

"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

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

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

Care for the dying soldier's physical and energetic needs.

Row down a river.

Enlist and fight.

Protest the war by writing letters.
9 What is the major conflict of the poem?

Death does not care about justice

Whether or not the young soldier will encounter his death

World War One

World War Two
10 Which quote best foreshadows the soldier's death?

"He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped"

"Shuddering because that evil thing had passed."

"Gently and slowly washing life away"

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

flickered

thudding

trickling

music
12 What collection was this poem published in?

The War Poems of Sigfried Sassoon

The Daffodil Murderer

Counter-Attack and Other Poems

The Old Huntsman and Other Poems
13 What is Sassoon best known for today?

His satires

His romantic pastoral poetry

His novels

His angry and compassionate anti-war poems
14 Which fellow soldier-poet named "The Death Bed" as the "finest poem" in the collection?

Rupert Brooke

Isaac Rosenberg

Robert Graves

Wilfred Owen
15 Which of the following is not a theme in the poem?

Death and Sleep as a Journey

Criticizing the Military Establishment

Satirizing military authority

Mortality
16 Who or what is personified in the poem?

death

death and the soldier's pain

an animal that broke into the ward

the soldier
17 What is personification?

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

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

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.
18 What does water symbolize?

The soldier's acceptance of his death

Summertime

The fluid state of the soldier's consciousness

Tranquility
19 Why are the guns at the end specified as "the"?

There is no reason for the specification

They refer to the conflict of World War II

They refer to the conflict of World War I

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

Unspecified, but perhaps to suggest a weak sense

Death is capitalized in the poem

Because it is an inanimate process.

Unspecified, but perhaps to suggest a humble sense
21 Where in the poem does Sassoon clarify that the drowsing man is dying?

In the final line

In the second-to-last stanza

In the first stanza

Never
22 Which words become an anaphora?

Water and night

Water and summer

Light and summer

Summer and night
23 Finish this quote: "Lipped by the inward, moonless__"

waves of pain

starless sky

waves of death

night sky
24 What is anaphora?

The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses.

A comparison between two things that are otherwise unrelated

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
25 Why does the speaker give a false sense of hope that the soldier will live?

To show that justice prevails when there is hope

To cruelly trick the reader

To increase the poem's tension by prolonging the death

To show that there is always hope

The Death Bed

by Siegfried Sassoon

The Death Bed Quiz

The Death Bed Questions and Answers

Study Guide for The Death Bed