Grade 7 ELA Practice Test: Poetry Analysis, Sound and Structure
- Poetry Analysis: Sound and Structure
- 10 questions
- 15 minutes
Read the poem "Grandfather's Garden," then answer the 10 questions. Tip: to find a rhyme scheme, give the first ending sound the letter A and each new ending sound the next letter.
Tap an option to mark your answer. You can change your mind, or tap the same option again to leave the question blank. The correct answers and explanations appear when you finish the test.Tap an option to answer; tap it again to leave the question blank.
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Question 1
Read the poem and answer questions 1-10.
Grandfather's Garden
In April, Grandpa kneels in rows of brown
and presses seeds like secrets in the ground.
The robins watch him from the fence in town,
and spring holds back, not making any sound.By June the beans are climbing up their strings,
the squash leaves spread like umbrellas, green and wide,
and every morning brings a hundred things:
a bloom, a bee, a tomato's reddening side.This year his knees are stiff; he cannot bend.
He sits up on the porch and points the way.
I dig the rows he planned from end to end
and plant the seeds the way he did each May.The garden doesn't care whose hands are new;
it answers to the rain, the sun, the seed.
And Grandpa nods, because he knows it too:
he planted more than beans. He planted me.What is the rhyme scheme of the first stanza?
Correct answer: A
"Brown" rhymes with "town" (lines 1 and 3), and "ground" rhymes with "sound" (lines 2 and 4), so the pattern is ABAB.
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Question 2
Poem (see above):
Which kind of figurative language is used in the line "and presses seeds like secrets in the ground"?
Correct answer: C
The line compares seeds to secrets using the word "like," which makes it a simile. A metaphor would make the comparison without "like" or "as."
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Question 3
Poem (see above):
The line "and spring holds back, not making any sound" is an example of which device?
Correct answer: B
Spring is given a human action: holding back and keeping quiet, as if waiting. There is no "like" or "as," so it is not a simile.
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Question 4
Poem (see above):
What does the list "a bloom, a bee, a tomato's reddening side" suggest about the garden in June?
Correct answer: D
The line comes right after "every morning brings a hundred things," so each item is one of the small new things the garden offers daily. Nothing in the stanza mentions damage.
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Question 5
Poem (see above):
How does the third stanza change the poem?
Correct answer: C
Grandpa's "knees are stiff," so he sits and "points the way" while the speaker digs and plants. The garden does not fail, and no new character appears.
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Question 6
Poem (see above):
What does the last line, "He planted me," most likely mean?
Correct answer: A
The metaphor compares the speaker to a plant Grandpa cared for. By teaching the speaker to garden, he passed on his skills, so his care keeps growing.
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Question 7
Poem (see above):
Which theme does the poem best support?
Correct answer: B
The speaker now plants "the way he did each May," so Grandpa's knowledge lives on in the speaker. The poem does not suggest Grandpa no longer enjoys the garden.
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Question 8
Poem (see above):
How is the poem organized?
Correct answer: D
The poem moves from April to June to "this year," then the final stanza steps back to think about what has happened. It is told in order, not as a flashback.
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Question 9
Poem (see above):
The line "the squash leaves spread like umbrellas, green and wide" appeals mainly to which sense?
Correct answer: C
The shape, color and size of the leaves are all things you see. Nothing in the line describes a sound, smell or taste.
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Question 10
Poem (see above):
Which words best describe the tone of the final stanza?
Correct answer: B
Grandpa "nods" in agreement, and the closing line expresses gratitude and continuity. Nothing in the stanza sounds angry, worried or joking.
Questions you leave blank are not counted as wrong.
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