AP English - Cycle 5 Test - MCQ

What do the images used throughout the first stanza (lines 1-8) function collectively as an illustration of?

Cyclical nature of life.

Unlike the first two stanzas, the third stanza is composed of statements rather than questions. What turn does this mark?

Expression of individual modesty to the assertion of a truth about impermanence.

What does the paradoxical assertion that the tree is "no mightier than the leaf" (line 18) suggest?

The tree will meet the same fate as the leaf

For the speaker, what does the "airy top" (line 21) of the tree symbolize?

The peak of human knowledge

In context, what does the final line of the poem ("Crawls . . . sleep") most plausibly suggest?

Finality of death and the cyclical nature of life

In context, what does the metaphor in lines 15-16 ("To glimpse . . . cloud") suggest?

Potential greatness of human achievement

In context, what is the relationship between a "hatchet" (line 9) and a "pruning knife" (line 10) most similar to?

A slaughter and a nurturer

What is the poem structured as?

A conversation

As a symbol, what does the "the rod" (line 22) reinforce as the speaker associates as a long life?

Punishment

In context,why are Time's words in lines 3-6 ("No marvel . . . find it") are ambiguous because time suggests that the blame comes from both

Those who wish for death and those who do not welcome their own death.

In context, what does the allusion to "Christ's coming" (line 11) primarily serve?

Account for a change in attitude

What describes how the poem's conceit is developed in lines 11-24 ("Christ's coming . . . hell") ?

A person's soul is compared to a plant; death is compared to a means of cultivating that plant by bringing it closer to god.

What statement best explains the irony about Jackson in the first sentence of the sixth paragraph ("He set . . . York")?

He is attempting to use technology to find a place his heart longs for.

In the second paragraph, what does Julia's comment that she sees the "tomb" as a symbol suggest?

Inevitability of human mortality

In context, what does the phrase "the cradle of civilization" in the eighth paragraph be interpreted to imply?

Jackson's return to his origins and the possibility of a kind of rebirth.