The Arrival of the Bee Box Quizzes

The Arrival of the Bee Box Quiz

1 Who is the poem's speaker?

A writer comparing her words to swarming bees

Somebody who has just ordered a box full of bees

A bee who lives on a farm

A grieving husband participating in the custom of "telling the bees"
2 Broadly speaking, what did bees symbolize in seventeenth-century Europe?

Poverty and monasticism

Noisiness and immorality

Creativity and individuality

Hard work and piety
3 What is the meaning of the word "colonnade"?

A dessert made of fruit

A row of columns

A colonial outpost

A military parade
4 Which writer did NOT use bees as a symbol or allegory?

John Greenleaf Whittier

Mary Leapor

Fanny Burney

John Mandeville
5 What are the bees probably NOT intended to symbolize in this poem?

The speaker's thoughts

Climate change

Familial demands on women

Sexual aggression
6 Where does the poem most likely take place?

The speaker's home

A school

An industrial honey farm

A field of flowers
7 Which collection was this poem a part of?

The Bell Jar

Ariel

Double Exposure

The Colossus
8 How does the work's final stanza most clearly differ from the others?

It is only one line long

It is written in a different meter

It is the only part that does not rhyme

It is spoken by a different speaker
9 Fill in the blank: I wonder if they would forget me/If I just undid the locks and stood back and _______"

died

closed my eyes

ran away

turned into a tree
10 Which is an example of irony?

The amount of noise that the bees make

The speaker's ability to keep her bees alive or let them die

The speaker's comparison of herself to God

The speaker's feeling of temptation despite the danger of the bees
11 Fill in the blank: It is the noise that _____ me most of all,

ensnares

distracts

intrigues

appalls
12 What does the speaker NOT compare the box to?

A tent

A baby

A coffin

A chair
13 How many stanzas are in the poem?

3

9

7

5
14 The speaker compares the bees to a mob from where?

Victorian Britain

Ancient Rome

Revolutionary America

The Old West
15 What is the meaning of the word "laburnum"?

A diploma

A type of tree

A kitchen counter

A New England company
16 What is the meaning of the word "din"?

Hillside

Dinner

Sunset

Noise
17 Which best describes the poem's portrayal of power?

The speaker struggles for power, but is no match for nature

The speaker struggles to decide whether it is she or the bees who holds disproportionate power

The speaker loses her power when she buys the bees and gives up her job

The bees' power comes from their cleanliness and cooperativeness
18 What is the poem's meter?

It has no set meter

Dactylic pentameter

Anapestic tetrameter

Iambic pentameter
19 What best describes the poem's conflict?

The speaker's decision about whether to free the bees

The bee's decision about whether to sting the human

The speaker's fight against the queen bee

The beekeeper's conflict with the industrialist
20 What best describes the speaker's feelings about the bees?

maddening irritation

self-effacing admiration

intimacy and love

alternating fascination and fear
21 What type of stanzas appear in the poem?

Sestets

Couplets

Tercets

The stanzas are unmatched
22 How is the theme of femininity discussed in the poem?

The bees' collaboration suggests that only collaboration between women will better their lot

The speaker's desire to engage with insects hints at a need to escape human gender norms

The poem subtly equates the speaker's fear of the bees with women's fear of violence or subjugation

The queen bee represents the feminists of the twentieth century
23 Which mythological figure is alluded to in the poem?

Hercules

Narcissus

Persephone

Daphne
24 What do the trees most closely symbolize?

Strength

The speaker's ambivalence

The abundance of nature

Escape from conflict
25 Which of the following is a metaphor?

"In my moon suit and funeral veil"

"There is only a little grid, no exit"

"They can die, I can feed them nothing"

"Square as a chair and almost too heavy to lift"

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