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.

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 a commanding officer.

The speaker is Sassoon himself.

The speaker is a soldier who experiences shell shock as a result of the bristling fire.
3 How many lines does the poem have?

14

12

11

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

Sonnet

Villanelle

Epic

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

Aubade

Sonnet

Love poem

Shakespeare
6 Describe the sunlight in the poem.

Bright purple, glowing

Wild purple, glowering

Strong and blinding

Pale yellow, filtering
7 Define "dun"

A horse

The state of being finished

A bright green color

Of a dull grayish-brown color.
8 What first emerges in the morning light?

The soldiers

The trench

The ridge

The tanks
9 Which is not an example of alliteration?

Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud

time ticks blank and busy

The barrage roars and lifts

The menacing scarred slope
10 What is alliteration?

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

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.

The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words
11 Why are the soldiers "clumsily bowed"?

They are weighed down by gear.

They bow to their superiors

They have been crippled.

They are deathly afraid.
12 What is a barrage?

A battlefield

A concentrated artillery bombardment over a wide area

A place where military gear is stored

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

Hope

The slope

The sunlight

The mud
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 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

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.
16 What is the form?

Strict iambic pentameter

Free verse

Iambic pentameter, with some exceptions in syllabic stress

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

in their chests

blank and busy on their wrists

meaninglessly

blank and brutal 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

Eerie, Desperate, Violent

Acerbic, Violent, Uncanny
20 Which detail best foreshadows the violence to come?

The smoke smolders

The scarred slope is menacing

The dawn light makes the ridge visible

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

Hyperbole

Personification

Onomatopoeia

Understatement
22 Which collection was this poem published in?

Counter-Attack and Other Poems

The War Poems

The Old Huntsman

Collected Poems
23 How was the collection received?

Poorly, as the details were too grotesque

Poorly, Sassoon was then hospitalized for shell shock

Well, though Sassoon was then hospitalized for shell shock

Well, due to its truthful and harrowing accounts of World War I.
24 Which of the following is not a theme?

Anonymity

The Horrors of Warfare

Explicitly Criticizing the British Public

Nature
25 Which line best demonstrates the theme of Anonymity?

The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one,

Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud

And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists

Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,

Attack (Sassoon poem)

by Siegfried Sassoon

Attack (Sassoon poem) Quiz

Attack (Sassoon poem) Questions and Answers

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