8th Grade Poetry Test
Directions: Read the following passages, and answer the questions
November
By: Alice Cary
The leaves are fading and falling;
The winds are rough and wild;
The birds have ceased their calling-But let me tell you, my child,
Though day by day, as it closes,
Doth darker and colder grow,
The roots of the bright red roses
Will keep alive in the snow.
And when the winter is over,
The boughs will get new leaves,
The quail come back to the clover,
And the swallow back to the eaves.
The robin will wear on his bosom
A vest that is bright and new,
And the loveliest wayside blossom
Will shine with the sun and dew.
The leaves today are whirling;
The brooks are all dry and dumb-But let me tell you, my darling,
The spring will be sure to come.
There must be rough, cold weather,
And winds and rains so wild;
Not all good things together
Come to us here, my child.
So, when some dear joy loses
Its beauteous summer glow,
Think how the roots of the roses
Are kept alive in the snow.
Directions: Select the best answer for each question.
1. What type of figurative language do the following lines of poetry use?
The robin will wear on his bosom
A vest that is bright and new
a. Personification
b. Onomatopoeia
c. Simile
d. Hyperbole
2. The poet uses words to create a mood of
a. Hope
b. Grief
c. Fear
d. Anger
3. Which is a likely theme for this poem?
a. Love never dies
b. Life goes on continuously
c. Nature is deadly
d. Teamwork makes the dream work
4. The lines “Doth darker and colder grow” and “The roots of the bright red roses” both contain
a. Alliteration
b. Metaphor
c. Hyperbole
d. Simile
5. This poem contains
a. 1 stanza
b. 28 stanzas
c. 7 stanzas
d. 6 stanzas
6. The speaker in this poem is talking to
a.
b.
c.
d.
A child
A robin
A room full of people
Springtime
Directions: Read the following passage and answer the questions
Summer Night
by Langston Hughes
1 The sounds
2 Of the Harlem night
3 Drop one by one into stillness.
4 The last player-piano is closed.
5 The last victrola ceases with the
6 "Jazz Boy Blues."
7 The last crying baby sleeps
8 And the night becomes
9 Still as a whispering heartbeat.
10 I toss
11 Without rest in the darkness,
12 Weary as the tired night,
13 My soul
14 Empty as the silence,
15 Empty with a vague,
16 Aching emptiness,
17 Desiring,
18 Needing someone,
19 Something.
20 I toss without rest
21 In the darkness
22 Until the new dawn,
23 Wan and pale,
24 Descends like a white mist
25 into the court-yard.
7.
Lines 1-9 in the poem mostly appeal to the sense of
a. Hearing
b. Site
c. Smell
d. Taste
8. In lines 8 and 9 “And the night becomes/still as a whispering heart beat” is an example of
a. A Metaphor
b. A Simile
c. Hyperbole
d. Internal rhyme
9. Based on the information in lines 10-21, we can infer that the speaker
a. Is having trouble sleeping
b. Enjoys playing catch in the night
c. Works the night shift
d. Enjoys staying up all night long
Directions: Read the passage and answer the questions
Childhood of the Ancients
by Andrew Hudgins
Hard? You don't know what hard is, boy:
When I was your age we got up in pitch dark,
and walked five miles to school and ten miles back,
uphill both ways, and all we had for lunch
was a cold sweet potato and dry cornbread.
And when we got back home your grandma made us
chop cotton, slop the hogs, then milk the chickens
before supper, and all we had to eat
was chicken-fried pine straw and redeye gravy.
Maybe some turnip greens. Maybe some collards.
But what do you know? Shoot, you've always had
hot food plopped in front of you, like magic.
For you, it's all ice cream and soda pop.
10. “Childhood of the Ancients” is considered a poem because
a.
b.
c.
d.
There are no quotation marks used to show direct speech
It is about someone’s feelings
It is written in verse form
The words are vivid
11. In lines 2-4, the author is using ______________ to describe his childhood.
a. Onomatopoeia
b. Hyperbole
c. Simile
d. Repetition
12. The differences between the speaker’s childhood and the boy’s childhood are shown most
through:
a. The foods they eat
b. The amount of time they spent in school
c. The time they get up in the morning
d. The homework they had
13. What can we infer about the speaker in this passage?
a. He thinks that the childhood he had was easier than the childhoods kids have now.
b. He thinks that kids now spend too much time in school and too little time in the fields.
c. He thinks that kids now have it way easier than he did when he was a kid.
d. He thinks that kids these days eat too much junk food.
14. The rhyme scheme in this poem is
a. Couplets
b. ABBAAC
c. Free verse
d. ABBA
Directions: Read the passage and answer the questions that follow
Dreams
By Langston Hughes
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
15. Lines 3 and 4 in this poem use which literary device?
a. Simile
b. Metaphor
c. Onomatopoeia
d. Hyperbole
16. Which of the following is a possible theme for the poem?
a. Life is meaningless without dreams
b. Dreams are often strange
c. Always try your hardest no matter what
d. Don’t judge a book by its cover
17. The line “For if dreams die” uses
a. Simile and Personification
b. Personification and alliteration
c. Internal rhyme and onomatopoeia
d. Metaphor and hyperbole
18. Lines 1 and 5 in the poem are examples of what sound device?
a. Onomatopoeia
b. Repetition
c. Internal Rhyme
d. Alliteration
Directions: Read the following poem and answer the questions
Harlem
By: Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
19. Why does the author use italics in the last line of the poem?
a. To make the reader pay extra attention to it
b. To change the way the poem sounds
c. To make the poem seem important
d. To show that it is the title of the poem
20. “Does it dry up like a raisin and the sun” and “does it stink like rotten meat” are examples of
a. Onomatopoeias
b. Personification
c. Metaphors
d. Similes
21. The poems “Harlem” and “Dreams” are similar because
a. Both of them have sad tones
b. Both of them are about a man dreaming
c. Both of them have themes that deal with forgotten dreams
d. Both of them are narrative poems
Directions: Use the following poem to answer the questions
Player Piano
My stick fingers click with a snicker
And, chuckling, they knuckle the keys;
Light footed, my steel feelers flicker
And pluck from these keys melodies.
My paper can caper; abandon
Is broadcast by dint of my din,
And no man or band has a hand in
The tones I turn on from within.
At times I'm a jumble of rumbles,
At others I'm light like the moon,
But never my numb plunker fumbles,
Misstrums me, or tries a new tune.
22. Lines 1, 5, 7, and 9 of this poem all use
a.
b.
c.
d.
Internal rhyme
Similes
Hyperbole
Repetition
23. The rhyme scheme of this poem is
a. Free verse
b. ABAB
c. AABB
d. ABCA
5
10
24.
The line “My stick fingers click with a snicker” contains an example of
a.
b.
c.
d.
onomatopoeia
simile
metaphor
hyperbole
Directions: Read the poem and answer the questions that follow.
I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD by Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
10
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
25. The first two stanzas of this poem appeal mostly to what sense?
a. Hearing
b. Sight
c. Touch
d. Taste
26. The poet compares the amount of daffodils he sees to
a. Stars
b. Lightening
c. Water
d. Gold
20
27. The image that this poem is mainly describing is
a. A single cloud floating in the sky
b. A field of daffodils next to a bay
c. A poet lying on his couch at home
d. A sky filled with stars
28. What literary device does the following section of the poem contain
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
a.
b.
c.
d.
Simile
Haiku
Onomatopoeia
Personification
29. The tone of this poem is
a. Sad and bleak
b. Angry
c. Cheerful
d. Frightening
30. Based on the last2 stanzas, we can infer that
a. The poet loved the daffodils so much that he grew a garden in his own yard
b. The poet often thinks about the daffodils to cheer himself up
c. The poet is allergic to daffodil pollen
d. The poet sold all of the daffodils and is now extremely wealthy