The Arrival of the Bee Box Quizzes

The Arrival of the Bee Box Quiz

1 Who is the poem's speaker?
A grieving husband participating in the custom of "telling the bees"

Somebody who has just ordered a box full of bees

A writer comparing her words to swarming bees

A bee who lives on a farm
2 Broadly speaking, what did bees symbolize in seventeenth-century Europe?
Poverty and monasticism

Noisiness and immorality

Hard work and piety

Creativity and individuality
3 What is the meaning of the word "colonnade"?
A military parade

A row of columns

A colonial outpost

A dessert made of fruit
4 Which writer did NOT use bees as a symbol or allegory?
Mary Leapor

John Greenleaf Whittier

Fanny Burney

John Mandeville
5 What are the bees probably NOT intended to symbolize in this poem?
Climate change

Familial demands on women

The speaker's thoughts

Sexual aggression
6 Where does the poem most likely take place?
A field of flowers

The speaker's home

An industrial honey farm

A school
7 Which collection was this poem a part of?
Ariel

The Colossus

Double Exposure

The Bell Jar
8 How does the work's final stanza most clearly differ from the others?
It is only one line long

It is written in a different meter

It is the only part that does not rhyme

It is spoken by a different speaker
9 Fill in the blank: I wonder if they would forget me/If I just undid the locks and stood back and _______"
ran away

closed my eyes

turned into a tree

died
10 Which is an example of irony?
The amount of noise that the bees make

The speaker's ability to keep her bees alive or let them die

The speaker's comparison of herself to God

The speaker's feeling of temptation despite the danger of the bees
11 Fill in the blank: It is the noise that _____ me most of all,
appalls

distracts

ensnares

intrigues
12 What does the speaker NOT compare the box to?
A tent

A baby

A coffin

A chair
13 How many stanzas are in the poem?
7

9

5

3
14 The speaker compares the bees to a mob from where?
Revolutionary America

Victorian Britain

The Old West

Ancient Rome
15 What is the meaning of the word "laburnum"?
A diploma

A New England company

A type of tree

A kitchen counter
16 What is the meaning of the word "din"?
Noise

Sunset

Dinner

Hillside
17 Which best describes the poem's portrayal of power?
The speaker struggles to decide whether it is she or the bees who holds disproportionate power

The bees' power comes from their cleanliness and cooperativeness

The speaker loses her power when she buys the bees and gives up her job

The speaker struggles for power, but is no match for nature
18 What is the poem's meter?
Dactylic pentameter

Anapestic tetrameter

Iambic pentameter

It has no set meter
19 What best describes the poem's conflict?
The beekeeper's conflict with the industrialist

The bee's decision about whether to sting the human

The speaker's fight against the queen bee

The speaker's decision about whether to free the bees
20 What best describes the speaker's feelings about the bees?
maddening irritation

alternating fascination and fear

self-effacing admiration

intimacy and love
21 What type of stanzas appear in the poem?
The stanzas are unmatched

Couplets

Sestets

Tercets
22 How is the theme of femininity discussed in the poem?
The poem subtly equates the speaker's fear of the bees with women's fear of violence or subjugation

The speaker's desire to engage with insects hints at a need to escape human gender norms

The bees' collaboration suggests that only collaboration between women will better their lot

The queen bee represents the feminists of the twentieth century
23 Which mythological figure is alluded to in the poem?
Narcissus

Hercules

Daphne

Persephone
24 What do the trees most closely symbolize?
The abundance of nature

Strength

Escape from conflict

The speaker's ambivalence
25 Which of the following is a metaphor?
"Square as a chair and almost too heavy to lift"

"There is only a little grid, no exit"

"They can die, I can feed them nothing"

"In my moon suit and funeral veil"

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