The Death Bed Quizzes

1 Which best describes the poem's speaker?

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

Unidentified, third-person

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

All-knowing, first-person, addresses the reader using second-person
2 Describe the form.

Six stanzas composed of different lengths

Seven stanzas composed of different lengths

Six sextets

Seven sextets
3 What senses are engaged in this poem?

Visual, tactile, auditory

Visual

Auditory, gustatory, olfactory

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

Water

"in the wings of sleep"

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

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

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 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"
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?

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

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

A comparison between two things that are otherwise unrelated
8 What is the reader implored to do?

Enlist and fight.

Row down a river.

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

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

World War One

Death does not care about justice

World War Two

Whether or not the young soldier will encounter his death
10 Which quote best foreshadows the soldier's death?

"Shuddering because that evil thing had passed."

"Gently and slowly washing life away"

"Rain—he could hear it rustling through the dark;"

"He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped"
11 Which is an example of onomatopoeia?

thudding

trickling

flickered

music
12 What collection was this poem published in?

The Old Huntsman and Other Poems

The War Poems of Sigfried Sassoon

The Daffodil Murderer

Counter-Attack and Other Poems
13 What is Sassoon best known for today?

His angry and compassionate anti-war poems

His satires

His romantic pastoral poetry

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

Robert Graves

Isaac Rosenberg

Rupert Brooke

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

Death and Sleep as a Journey

Satirizing military authority

Mortality

Criticizing the Military Establishment
16 Who or what is personified in the poem?

death and the soldier's pain

the soldier

an animal that broke into the ward

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?

Summertime

The fluid state of the soldier's consciousness

Tranquility

The soldier's acceptance of his death
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 I

They refer to the conflict of World War II

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

Because it is an inanimate process.

Death is capitalized in the poem

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

Never

In the final line

In the first stanza

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

Summer and night

Water and night

Water and summer

Light and summer
23 Finish this quote: "Lipped by the inward, moonless__"

waves of death

starless sky

waves of pain

night sky
24 What is anaphora?

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

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

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 show that there is always hope

To increase the poem's tension by prolonging the death

To show that justice prevails when there is hope

To cruelly trick the reader

The Death Bed

by Siegfried Sassoon

The Death Bed Quiz

The Death Bed Questions and Answers

Study Guide for The Death Bed