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ELA 9

English Language Arts 9 · Worksheets

Poetry and drama

Ten questions of mixed difficulty, covering Poetry and drama. Print it, or work through it on screen — the answer key starts on its own page.

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Poetry and drama

English Language Arts 9 · maddyhelps.com

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Circle the best answer for each question. Use the space to note the evidence or reasoning that decided it.

  1. Read: “The kitchen smelled of cardamom and toast; / the kettle rattled, and the window wept with steam.” These lines appeal mainly to which senses?

    1. a) smell, hearing and sight
    2. b) taste, touch and sight
    3. c) hearing, touch and taste
    4. d) sight and taste only

  2. A poem begins: “I am the last grain elevator in town. / They took my brothers down one by one.” The speaker of these lines is

    1. a) the poet, telling a personal story
    2. b) the grain elevator itself
    3. c) a farmer who owns the elevator
    4. d) the people who took the elevators down

  3. Read these lines from a poem (/ marks a line break): “Blades go skritch across the ice, / the puck goes thwack against the boards.” The words “skritch” and “thwack” are examples of

    1. a) simile
    2. b) alliteration
    3. c) onomatopoeia
    4. d) personification

  4. A play opens with these stage directions: “A hospital waiting room, 3 a.m. One light flickers. A vending machine hums. ANITA sits very straight, still in her restaurant uniform, her coat folded on her knees.” The detail of the uniform most suggests that Anita

    1. a) wants to look her best for visitors
    2. b) came straight from work in a hurry
    3. c) is planning to go back to work soon
    4. d) works the night shift at the hospital

  5. In which line is the repeated sound assonance rather than alliteration?

    1. a) a sharp shout from the ship
    2. b) cold, cracked and crumbling concrete
    3. c) big brown bears on the bank
    4. d) the low moan of the old stone road

  6. Read this part of a script: “GRACE (to Liam): Of course I'll help you study for the test. (turning to the audience) The test I already saw on Ms. Ruiz's desk.” The words after “(turning to the audience)” are

    1. a) an aside, heard by the audience but not by Liam
    2. b) a flashback, showing an earlier scene in the play
    3. c) a monologue, spoken at length to the other characters
    4. d) a stage direction, telling the actor what to do

  7. Read: “We waited for the bus. / We waited in the wind. / We waited while the light went out / and the road stayed empty.” The repetition of “We waited” mainly emphasizes

    1. a) how many people were waiting for the bus
    2. b) how long and hopeless the waiting felt
    3. c) how much the speaker enjoyed the quiet
    4. d) that the bus arrived just before dark

  8. Read this poem (/ marks a line break): “All summer the canola burned yellow to the fence, / the whole field loud with bees and light. / Now the swathers have been through, / the rows laid down like folded laundry, / and my sister's room is boxes by the door.” The last line changes the poem's focus by

    1. a) showing that this year's harvest has been a failure
    2. b) adding one more detail about the farm's harvest work
    3. c) linking the end of summer to the sister leaving home
    4. d) revealing that the speaker is moving to the city

  9. Read these lines (/ marks a line break): “I promised Grandma I'd visit every summer. / I meant it. / Then.” Setting “Then.” alone on the last line mainly suggests that

    1. a) the speaker still visits Grandma every single summer
    2. b) Grandma has forgotten the promise the speaker made
    3. c) the speaker is about to describe what happened next
    4. d) the promise was sincere once but has since been broken

  10. Read this part of a script: “MAYA (without looking up from her phone): Sounds great, Dad. DAD: I said we're moving to Yellowknife. MAYA (looking up): Wait. What?” The stage directions show that Maya

    1. a) is excited about the family moving to Yellowknife
    2. b) is upset that her dad keeps asking her questions
    3. c) was not listening until the news got her attention
    4. d) already knew about the move before Dad said it

Answer key · Poetry and drama

English Language Arts 9 · maddyhelps.com

  1. a) smell, hearing and sight — Cardamom and toast are smells, the rattling kettle is a sound, and the steamy window is something you see. Toast might make you think of taste, but the line says the kitchen smelled of it, not that anyone ate it.
  2. b) the grain elevator itself — The speaker is the voice in the poem, and here the poet gives that voice to the elevator: “I am the last grain elevator.” Assuming the speaker is always the poet is a common mistake; poets often speak as someone, or something, else.
  3. c) onomatopoeia — Onomatopoeia is a word that imitates the sound it names; you can almost hear the blade and the puck. “Skritch” and “thwack” do not start with the same sound, so they are not alliteration.
  4. b) came straight from work in a hurry — It is 3 a.m. and she is still in a restaurant uniform, so she did not have time to go home and change; something sudden brought her here. The uniform is from a restaurant, which rules out a hospital shift.
  5. d) the low moan of the old stone road — Assonance repeats a vowel sound inside words, here the long o in low, moan, old, stone and road. The other lines repeat the consonant sound at the start of words, which is alliteration; both are repeated sounds, so the test is vowel or consonant.
  6. a) an aside, heard by the audience but not by Liam — An aside is a short line spoken to the audience that the other characters cannot hear, which is how the audience learns Grace's secret. The words in brackets are the stage direction; the words after it are Grace's line.
  7. b) how long and hopeless the waiting felt — Each repetition adds more time — the wind, then the dark — while nothing changes, so the waiting feels endless. The empty road rules out the bus arriving, and “we” shows more than one person was there but not how many.
  8. c) linking the end of summer to the sister leaving home — The poem moves from a bright, full summer to a field cut down and folded away, and the boxes show what that change stands for: the sister is leaving. Reading the last line as one more harvest detail misses the turn, and the boxes are in the sister's room, not the speaker's.
  9. d) the promise was sincere once but has since been broken — “I meant it. Then.” means “I meant it at the time,” and giving the word its own line makes the reader feel the gap between then and now. Reading “then” as “next” expects a story that never comes; the poem stops there on purpose.
  10. c) was not listening until the news got her attention — “Without looking up” shows she answered without hearing, and “looking up” marks the moment the news sinks in. Stage directions often show what the lines alone would hide; here, that her “Sounds great” meant nothing.