Sound Devices
Multiple Choice
Identify the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question.
Critical ReadingIdentify the letter of the choice that best answers the question.
____
1. What is the pianist in “The Weary Blues” doing when he makes the piano “moan with melody”?
a.
b.
c.
d.
____
playing poorly though enthusiastically
humming with the music
playing sadly with feeling
banging violently on the keys
2. What are the blues that the pianist sings about in “The Weary Blues”?
a.
b.
c.
d.
____
poverty
labor
hunger
loneliness
3. What is the speaker doing in “The Weary Blues”?
a.
b.
c.
d.
____
playing a blues song
singing a blues song
listening to a blues song
writing a blues song
4. Which of these phrases from “The Weary Blues” shows an example of alliteration?
____
“Down on Lenox Avenue”
“Swaying to and fro”
“that poor piano”
“a deep song voice”
5. Who is performing the action in these lines from “The Weary Blues”?
a.
b.
c.
d.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night / By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light / He did a lazy
sway…. / He did a lazy sway…. / To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
a.
b.
c.
d.
____
a musician
the speaker
someone in a dream
someone on the street
6. Which of these phrases from “In Flanders Fields” contains an example of assonance?
a. “The torch; be yours to hold it high.”
b. “We shall not sleep”
c. “We are the Dead”
d. “In Flanders fields the poppies blow”
____
7. Who are the speakers of “In Flanders Fields”?
a.
b.
c.
d.
____
poppies in a cemetery
soldiers killed in battle
soldiers in battle
relatives of soldiers
8. What are the speakers asking of the reader in these lines from “In Flanders Fields”?
To you from failing hands we throw / The torch; be yours to hold it high.
a.
b.
c.
d.
____
to have faith in the speakers
to plant poppies in Flanders Fields
to carry on the speakers' fight
to pray for those who died
9. Who is performing the action in these lines from “Jazz Fantasia”?
Moan like an autumn wind high in the lonesome treetops, / moan soft like you wanted somebody
terrible….
a.
b.
c.
d.
the speaker of the poem
a person who is crying
a person in a dream
a group of musicians
____ 10. What is the speaker in “Jazz Fantasia” doing?
a.
b.
c.
d.
listening to a jazz band
playing in a jazz band
singing with a jazz band
dancing to a jazz band
____ 11. Which of these phrases from “Jazz Fantasia” contains an example of onomatopoeia?
“make two people fight”
“batter on your banjoes”
“the green lanterns calling”
“a racing car slipping away”
____ 12. When the speaker tells the musicians in “Jazz Fantasia” to “Can the rough stuff,” what does he want
them to do?
a.
b.
c.
d.
a.
b.
c.
d.
play on cans
play more softly
stop playing
play more roughly
Vocabulary and Grammar
____ 13. What does the word melancholy mean in the following line from “The Weary Blues”?
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
a.
b.
c.
d.
sad
angry
ill
perplexed
____ 14. What is ideology the study of?
a.
b.
c.
d.
insects
ideas
music
poetry
Essay
15. “The Weary Blues” and “Jazz Fantasia” use sound devices to create a sense of the music they
describe. In an essay, explain what sound devices each poet uses and describe how the use of the
sound devices contributes to the mood of the musical form in each poem. Use details from the poems
to support your conclusions.