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 writer comparing her words to swarming bees

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

Somebody who has just ordered a box full of bees
2 Broadly speaking, what did bees symbolize in seventeenth-century Europe?
Hard work and piety

Creativity and individuality

Noisiness and immorality

Poverty and monasticism
3 What is the meaning of the word "colonnade"?
A colonial outpost

A dessert made of fruit

A row of columns

A military parade
4 Which writer did NOT use bees as a symbol or allegory?
Fanny Burney

John Mandeville

John Greenleaf Whittier

Mary Leapor
5 What are the bees probably NOT intended to symbolize in this poem?
The speaker's thoughts

Sexual aggression

Climate change

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?
Double Exposure

The Colossus

The Bell Jar

Ariel
8 How does the work's final stanza most clearly differ from the others?
It is spoken by a different speaker

It is only one line long

It is written in a different meter

It is the only part that does not rhyme
9 Fill in the blank: I wonder if they would forget me/If I just undid the locks and stood back and _______"
died

closed my eyes

turned into a tree

ran away
10 Which is an example of irony?
The speaker's ability to keep her bees alive or let them die

The amount of noise that the bees make

The speaker's feeling of temptation despite the danger of the bees

The speaker's comparison of herself to God
11 Fill in the blank: It is the noise that _____ me most of all,
intrigues

appalls

distracts

ensnares
12 What does the speaker NOT compare the box to?
A chair

A tent

A coffin

A baby
13 How many stanzas are in the poem?
9

7

5

3
14 The speaker compares the bees to a mob from where?
Ancient Rome

The Old West

Revolutionary America

Victorian Britain
15 What is the meaning of the word "laburnum"?
A New England company

A diploma

A kitchen counter

A type of tree
16 What is the meaning of the word "din"?
Noise

Hillside

Dinner

Sunset
17 Which best describes the poem's portrayal of power?
The bees' power comes from their cleanliness and cooperativeness

The speaker struggles to decide whether it is she or the bees who holds disproportionate power

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

Iambic pentameter

Anapestic tetrameter

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

The speaker's fight against the queen bee

The speaker's decision about whether to free the bees

The bee's decision about whether to sting the human
20 What best describes the speaker's feelings about the bees?
self-effacing admiration

intimacy and love

maddening irritation

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

Sestets

The stanzas are unmatched

Couplets
22 How is the theme of femininity discussed in the poem?
The bees' collaboration suggests that only collaboration between women will better their lot

The queen bee represents the feminists of the twentieth century

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
23 Which mythological figure is alluded to in the poem?
Persephone

Hercules

Narcissus

Daphne
24 What do the trees most closely symbolize?
The speaker's ambivalence

Strength

The abundance of nature

Escape from conflict
25 Which of the following is a metaphor?
"In my moon suit and funeral veil"

"There is only a little grid, no exit"

"They can die, I can feed them nothing"

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

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