Quiz

After Apple-Picking

Robert Frost

1. 1. The ladder described at the poem's opening is said to be pointing 'toward heaven still.' What is the most significant effect of this detail?

   A. It establishes that the ladder is unusually tall and well-made.B. It introduces a spiritual or transcendent dimension to the speaker's labor.C. It shows that the speaker plans to resume picking the next morning.D. It emphasizes the physical danger involved in apple-picking.

2. 2. The speaker describes looking through a pane of ice he skimmed from a drinking trough. What literary technique does this primarily represent?

   A. Personification of the natural worldB. A defamiliarizing lens that distorts normal visionC. A simile comparing winter to glassD. An allusion to biblical purification rituals

3. 3. Which of the following best describes the overall tone of the poem?

   A. Joyful and celebratory about a bountiful harvestB. Bitter and resentful toward the demands of farm laborC. Weary and contemplative, edged with uneaseD. Detached and clinical, like a field report

4. 4. In the closing lines, the speaker wonders whether his approaching sleep resembles the woodchuck's long sleep. What is the woodchuck most likely meant to symbolize in this context?

   A. Rural innocence and the simplicity of animal lifeB. The instinctive, dreamless sleep of hibernation — possibly deathC. A neighbor who might reassure the speaker about fatigueD. The natural world's indifference to human ambition

5. 5. The poem is composed in an irregular rhyme scheme and varying line lengths rather than a fixed stanza form. What is the most likely purpose of this structural choice?

   A. To imitate the irregular, drifting quality of a mind falling asleepB. To signal that Frost rejected all poetic tradition in this workC. To make the poem easier to memorize and recite aloudD. To reflect the unpredictable weather of a New England autumn

6. 6. Which image most directly conveys the physical toll of the harvest on the speaker's body?

   A. 'Magnified apples appear and disappear'B. 'My instep arch not only keeps the ache'C. 'The rumbling sound of load on load'D. 'Every fleck of russet showing clear'

7. 7. What does the phrase 'the great harvest I myself desired' reveal about the speaker's relationship to his labor?

   A. He regrets having chosen farming over a more intellectual pursuit.B. He blames others for setting unrealistic harvesting goals.C. He acknowledges his own ambition as the source of his exhaustion.D. He takes pride in having surpassed all previous harvests.

8. 8. Apples that 'struck the earth' were sent to the cider-apple heap 'as of no worth.' In the poem's broader thematic context, what does this detail most likely suggest?

   A. Frost is critiquing the inefficiency of apple-farming practices.B. Work or effort that falls short of perfection is deemed worthless by society.C. The speaker is relieved to have fewer apples to carry to the barn.D. Fallen apples symbolize youth and the fallen apples represent wasted time.

9. 9. Which of the following best identifies the speaker of the poem?

   A. An omniscient narrator observing a farmer from a distanceB. A young farmhand eager to impress his employerC. A first-person speaker who is the apple-picker himselfD. A personified Season lamenting the end of autumn

10. 10. The speaker says he 'cannot rub the strangeness' from his sight after looking through the ice. What does this persistent 'strangeness' most directly foreshadow?

    A. The speaker's fear that he has damaged his eyesight from long hours outdoorsB. The haunting, dream-like visions of apples that overwhelm his sleepC. His regret over the apples he failed to pick before winter arrivedD. A supernatural presence in the orchard that unsettles him
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