The Arrival of the Bee Box Quizzes

The Arrival of the Bee Box Quiz

1 Who is the poem's speaker?
A bee who lives on a farm

A grieving husband participating in the custom of "telling the bees"

A writer comparing her words to swarming bees

Somebody who has just ordered a box full of bees
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 dessert made of fruit

A colonial outpost

A military parade

A row of columns
4 Which writer did NOT use bees as a symbol or allegory?
John Mandeville

Mary Leapor

John Greenleaf Whittier

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

Sexual aggression

The speaker's thoughts

Familial demands on women
6 Where does the poem most likely take place?
A school

The speaker's home

An industrial honey farm

A field of flowers
7 Which collection was this poem a part of?
The Colossus

Double Exposure

The Bell Jar

Ariel
8 How does the work's final stanza most clearly differ from the others?
It is the only part that does not rhyme

It is written in a different meter

It is only one line long

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 _______"
closed my eyes

turned into a tree

ran away

died
10 Which is an example of irony?
The speaker's comparison of herself to God

The amount of noise that the bees make

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

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,
intrigues

ensnares

appalls

distracts
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?
9

3

5

7
14 The speaker compares the bees to a mob from where?
Ancient Rome

The Old West

Victorian Britain

Revolutionary America
15 What is the meaning of the word "laburnum"?
A type of tree

A diploma

A New England company

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

Noise

Hillside

Sunset
17 Which best describes the poem's portrayal of 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

The speaker struggles to decide whether it is she or the bees who holds disproportionate power
18 What is the poem's meter?
It has no set meter

Iambic pentameter

Dactylic pentameter

Anapestic tetrameter
19 What best describes the poem's conflict?
The bee's decision about whether to sting the human

The speaker's fight against the queen bee

The beekeeper's conflict with the industrialist

The speaker's decision about whether to free the bees
20 What best describes the speaker's feelings about the bees?
intimacy and love

maddening irritation

self-effacing admiration

alternating fascination and fear
21 What type of stanzas appear in the poem?
Sestets

The stanzas are unmatched

Tercets

Couplets
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?
Persephone

Hercules

Daphne

Narcissus
24 What do the trees most closely symbolize?
Strength

The abundance of nature

Escape from conflict

The speaker's ambivalence
25 Which of the following is a metaphor?
"There is only a little grid, no exit"

"In my moon suit and funeral veil"

"They can die, I can feed them nothing"

"Square as a chair and almost too heavy to lift"

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