Attack (Sassoon poem) Quizzes

1 Which point(s) of view is/are used in the poem?

Third-person

First-person

Second and third-person

Second-person
2 Describe the speaker.

The speaker is a commanding officer.

The speaker is a soldier who experiences shell shock as a result of the bristling fire.

An unidentified speaker witnesses a battle taking place. The final plea to Jesus to stop the violence indicates that the speaker is either participating in the battle, or is speaking on behalf of the soldiers.

The speaker is Sassoon himself.
3 How many lines does the poem have?

14

13

12

11
4 What poetic form does "Attack" most closely resemble?

Epic

Villanelle

Sestina

Sonnet
5 What kinds of poems deal with morning and the departure of lovers?

Love poem

Aubade

Shakespeare

Sonnet
6 Describe the sunlight in the poem.

Wild purple, glowering

Strong and blinding

Pale yellow, filtering

Bright purple, glowing
7 Define "dun"

A horse

Of a dull grayish-brown color.

The state of being finished

A bright green color
8 What first emerges in the morning light?

The trench

The soldiers

The ridge

The tanks
9 Which is not an example of alliteration?

time ticks blank and busy

Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud

The menacing scarred slope

The barrage roars and lifts
10 What is alliteration?

The repetition of the sound of a vowel or diphthong in nonrhyming stressed syllables near enough to each other for the echo to be discernible

The use of "like" or "as" to make a comparison.

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

A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.
11 Why are the soldiers "clumsily bowed"?

They are deathly afraid.

They are weighed down by gear.

They have been crippled.

They bow to their superiors
12 What is a barrage?

Soldiers' accommodations

A concentrated artillery bombardment over a wide area

A place where military gear is stored

A battlefield
13 What does not get personified in the poem?

The sunlight

The slope

The mud

Hope
14 Which is example of personification?

And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists, / Flounders in mud

Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,

At dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun

They leave their trenches, going over the top,
15 What is personification?

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

The occurrence of a poet humanizing someone.

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

A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.
16 What is the form?

Iambic pentameter, with some exceptions in syllabic stress

Strict iambic pentameter

Blank verse

Free verse
17 Finish this quote: "While time ticks__"

blank and brutal on their wrists

in their chests

blank and busy on their wrists

meaninglessly
18 Who does the speaker plead to in the final line?

His mother

Jesus

God

His commanders
19 What is the tone?

Acerbic, Violent, Uncanny

Pointed, Angry, Violent

Bitter, Tragic, Reflective

Eerie, Desperate, Violent
20 Which detail best foreshadows the violence to come?

The scarred slope is menacing

The smoke smolders

The dawn light makes the ridge visible

Men jostle and climb to
21 Which of the following is used in the poem?

Personification

Understatement

Onomatopoeia

Hyperbole
22 Which collection was this poem published in?

Counter-Attack and Other Poems

Collected Poems

The War Poems

The Old Huntsman
23 How was the collection received?

Well, due to its truthful and harrowing accounts of World War I.

Well, though Sassoon was then hospitalized for shell shock

Poorly, as the details were too grotesque

Poorly, Sassoon was then hospitalized for shell shock
24 Which of the following is not a theme?

Nature

Anonymity

Explicitly Criticizing the British Public

The Horrors of Warfare
25 Which line best demonstrates the theme of Anonymity?

Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud

The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one,

Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,

And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists

Attack (Sassoon poem)

by Siegfried Sassoon

Attack (Sassoon poem) Quiz

Attack (Sassoon poem) Questions and Answers

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