Attack (Sassoon poem) Quizzes

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

Second-person

First-person

Second and third-person

Third-person
2 Describe the speaker.

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

The speaker is a commanding officer.

The speaker is Sassoon himself.

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.
3 How many lines does the poem have?

14

12

11

13
4 What poetic form does "Attack" most closely resemble?

Sestina

Epic

Villanelle

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

Love poem

Shakespeare

Aubade

Sonnet
6 Describe the sunlight in the poem.

Strong and blinding

Bright purple, glowing

Pale yellow, filtering

Wild purple, glowering
7 Define "dun"

Of a dull grayish-brown color.

A bright green color

The state of being finished

A horse
8 What first emerges in the morning light?

The tanks

The ridge

The soldiers

The trench
9 Which is not an example of alliteration?

time ticks blank and busy

The barrage roars and lifts

The menacing scarred slope

Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud
10 What is alliteration?

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

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

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 have been crippled.

They are weighed down by gear.

They are deathly afraid.

They bow to their superiors
12 What is a barrage?

A battlefield

A place where military gear is stored

A concentrated artillery bombardment over a wide area

Soldiers' accommodations
13 What does not get personified in the poem?

The mud

The slope

Hope

The sunlight
14 Which is example of personification?

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

At dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun

They leave their trenches, going over the top,

Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,
15 What is personification?

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 a poet humanizing someone.

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

The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words
16 What is the form?

Iambic pentameter, with some exceptions in syllabic stress

Free verse

Blank verse

Strict iambic pentameter
17 Finish this quote: "While time ticks__"

meaninglessly

blank and brutal on their wrists

in their chests

blank and busy on their wrists
18 Who does the speaker plead to in the final line?

His mother

God

His commanders

Jesus
19 What is the tone?

Pointed, Angry, Violent

Bitter, Tragic, Reflective

Acerbic, Violent, Uncanny

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

The scarred slope is menacing

Men jostle and climb to

The dawn light makes the ridge visible

The smoke smolders
21 Which of the following is used in the poem?

Personification

Understatement

Hyperbole

Onomatopoeia
22 Which collection was this poem published in?

Counter-Attack and Other Poems

The War Poems

Collected Poems

The Old Huntsman
23 How was the collection received?

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

Poorly, as the details were too grotesque

Well, though Sassoon was then hospitalized for shell shock

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

Explicitly Criticizing the British Public

Anonymity

The Horrors of Warfare

Nature
25 Which line best demonstrates the theme of Anonymity?

The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one,

Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,

Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud

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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