The Death Bed Quizzes

The Death Bed Quiz

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

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

Unidentified, third-person

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

Seven stanzas composed of different lengths

Six stanzas composed of different lengths

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

Visual, tactile, auditory

All senses

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

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

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

"in the wings of sleep"
5 Which best describes a metaphor?
A description of one thing by way of another, unrelated thing

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 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"

"Light many lamps and gather round his bed. / Lend him your...will to live"

"Silence and safety"
7 What is alliteration?
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 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
8 What is the reader implored to do?
Protest the war by writing letters.

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

Enlist and fight.

Row down a river.
9 What is the major conflict of the poem?
World War One

Whether or not the young soldier will encounter his death

Death does not care about justice

World War Two
10 Which quote best foreshadows the soldier's death?
"He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped"

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

"Gently and slowly washing life away"

"Shuddering because that evil thing had passed."
11 Which is an example of onomatopoeia?
music

flickered

thudding

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

The War Poems of Sigfried Sassoon

The Old Huntsman and Other Poems

Counter-Attack and Other Poems
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?
Wilfred Owen

Rupert Brooke

Isaac Rosenberg

Robert Graves
15 Which of the following is not a theme in the poem?
Criticizing the Military Establishment

Satirizing military authority

Mortality

Death and Sleep as a Journey
16 Who or what is personified in the poem?
death and the soldier's pain

an animal that broke into the ward

death

the soldier
17 What is personification?
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 using the words "like" or "as"

A word or phrase used in a non-literal sense for rhetorical or vivid effect
18 What does water symbolize?
Summertime

The fluid state of the soldier's consciousness

The soldier's acceptance of his death

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

They refer to the conflict of World War II
20 Why is death not capitalized in the poem?
Unspecified, but perhaps to suggest a weak sense

Unspecified, but perhaps to suggest a humble sense

Because it is an inanimate process.

Death is capitalized in the poem
21 Where in the poem does Sassoon clarify that the drowsing man is dying?
In the second-to-last stanza

In the first stanza

Never

In the final line
22 Which words become an anaphora?
Summer and night

Light and summer

Water and summer

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

waves of pain

waves of death

night sky
24 What is anaphora?
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.

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

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 increase the poem's tension by prolonging the death

To show that justice prevails when there is hope

To cruelly trick the reader

To show that there is always hope

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