The Death Bed Quizzes

The Death Bed Quiz

1 Which best describes the poem's speaker?
Unidentified, third-person

All-knowing, first-person, addresses the reader using second-person

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

Omniscient, third-person; addresses the reader using second-person
2 Describe the form.
Seven stanzas composed of different lengths

Six sextets

Seven sextets

Six stanzas composed of different lengths
3 What senses are engaged in this poem?
All senses

Visual, tactile, auditory

Auditory, gustatory, olfactory

Visual
4 Which of the following is not a metaphor in the poem?
"silence heaped / Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls"

"in the wings of sleep"

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

Water
5 Which best describes a metaphor?
A comparison between two things that are otherwise unrelated using the words "like" or "as"

A description of one thing by way of another, unrelated thing

A word or phrase used in a non-literal sense for rhetorical or vivid effec

The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words
6 Which is not an example of alliteration?
"Silence and safety"

"That soak the woods; not the harsh rain"

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

"And there was silence in the summer night; / Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep"
7 What is alliteration?
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 using the words "like" or "as"

A comparison between two things that are otherwise unrelated
8 What is the reader implored to do?
Care for the dying soldier's physical and energetic needs.

Row down a river.

Enlist and fight.

Protest the war by writing letters.
9 What is the major conflict of the poem?
Whether or not the young soldier will encounter his death

Death does not care about justice

World War Two

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

"Gently and slowly washing life away"

"Shuddering because that evil thing had passed."

"Rain—he could hear it rustling through the dark;"
11 Which is an example of onomatopoeia?
music

thudding

trickling

flickered
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 satires

His romantic pastoral poetry

His novels

His angry and compassionate anti-war poems
14 Which fellow soldier-poet named "The Death Bed" as the "finest poem" in the collection?
Robert Graves

Wilfred Owen

Isaac Rosenberg

Rupert Brooke
15 Which of the following is not a theme in the poem?
Criticizing the Military Establishment

Death and Sleep as a Journey

Mortality

Satirizing military authority
16 Who or what is personified in the poem?
the soldier

death and the soldier's pain

an animal that broke into the ward

death
17 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.

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 using the words "like" or "as"
18 What does water symbolize?
The soldier's acceptance of his death

Summertime

The fluid state of the soldier's consciousness

Tranquility
19 Why are the guns at the end specified as "the"?
There is no reason for the specification

They refer to the conflict of World War II

They refer to the conflict of World War I

They refer to the guns the soldier used in battle
20 Why is death not capitalized in the poem?
Death is capitalized in the poem

Because it is an inanimate process.

Unspecified, but perhaps to suggest a weak sense

Unspecified, but perhaps to suggest a humble sense
21 Where in the poem does Sassoon clarify that the drowsing man is dying?
In the final line

In the second-to-last stanza

Never

In the first stanza
22 Which words become an anaphora?
Water and summer

Water and night

Summer and night

Light and summer
23 Finish this quote: "Lipped by the inward, moonless__"
starless sky

waves of death

waves of pain

night sky
24 What is anaphora?
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

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

The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses.
25 Why does the speaker give a false sense of hope that the soldier will live?
To show that there is always hope

To show that justice prevails when there is hope

To cruelly trick the reader

To increase the poem's tension by prolonging the death

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