Study Guide for Exam 2

Go to Poetry Terms
NOTE: This page is intended as a helpful guide to studying for the exam.  It may not cover all the information that is on the test.  Your notes should be your principal guide to studying for the exam. You may also want to look at the notes on Blackboard (look under Course Documents). 

1. Format. Like Exam 1, Exam 2 will contain multiple-choice questions, matching (literary terms), identification, and an essay section. There will be a choice of questions on the essay section, but you will only need to write on one question

For the identification questions,  you will need to identify the title, author, and significance of the item chosen.

2. Poems Covered. You should be able to identify the title and author of each poem discussed in class as well as its major features as appropriate (subject, form, meter, symbolism, use of sound, images, and so forth--see Poetry Terms page for other possibilities).

You should also be able to scan a piece of poetry and determine its meter (iambic pentameter, trochaic tetrameter, and so forth). Note:  Not all poems will have significant features such as a clearly identifiable form; for those poems, I will not expect you to know the meter.

An asterisk * identifies those poems or poets assigned but not discussed in class. You will not be expected to answer detailed questions or identification questions about them, although they may appear as possible choices in the multiple choice section of the exam.

Angelou, Maya. "My Arkansas"
Browning, Robert. "My Last Duchess"
Harper,Frances E. W. "She's Free!"
Heaney, Seamus. "Requiem for the Croppies"; "The Grauballe Man"; "Punishment"
Hopkins, Gerard Manley. "God's Grandeur"
Hughes, Langston."Harlem"; "Let America be America Again"
Jarrell, Randall. "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"
Marvell,Andrew. "To His Coy Mistress"
Northrup, Jim. "Ogichidag"
Owen, Wilfred. "Dulce et Decorum Est"
Plath,Sylvia. "Metaphors"
Shakespeare, William. "That Time of Year Thou Mayest in Me Behold"
Wordsworth,William. "The World is Too Much With Us"

3. Possible Topics for Essay Questions. You can expect that at least one of the essay question choices will be drawn from this list:
• Attitude toward war in war poems
• Attitude toward nature
• Questions of belief
• Use of history and other allusions in poetry
• Comparison of sonnets
• A close reading (explication) of a short selection from a poem
• Use of sound or images in a poem
• Use of allusion or symbolism in a poem
• Analysis of how effectively the poet achieves his or her aims in a particular poem
1. 4. Poetry Terms. Go to the Poetry Terms page. Note: Terms not covered in class (marked with an asterisk) need not be memorized.  You can also go to a "Test Yourself" online quiz to check your knowledge of these terms.  The results only appear on the screen; I will never see them.  There is also a "Test Yourself" online quiz for scanning poems.