GED Practice Quiz

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Choose the one best answer for each question. When you have finished the quiz, click on Submit Answers to receive feedback and results. You may also choose to e-mail your results to your instructor.

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Question 1 refers to the following poem.

WHY IS THE BOAT WHISTLING?

Lost

Desolate and lone
All night long on the lake
Where fog trails and mist creeps,
The whistle of a boat
(5) Calls and cries unendingly,
Like some lost child
In tears and trouble
Hunting the harbor’s breast
And the harbor’s eyes.

Carl Sandburg, "Lost," Chicago Poems, 1916


1	To what does the poem compare the boat’s whistle?
		A)	a lonely person crying
		B)	a mother searching for her child
		C)	a foghorn
		D)	a child’s cries for its mother
		E)	a train whistle in the night

Questions 2 through 4 refer to the following poem.

HOW DOES RICHARD BONE FEEL ABOUT HIS WORK?

Richard Bone

When I first came to Spoon River
I did not know whether what they told me
Was true or false.

They would bring me the epitaph
(5) And stand around the shop while I worked
And say "He was so kind," "He was wonderful,"
"She was the sweetest woman," "He was a consistent Christian."

And I chiseled for them whatever they wished,
All in ignorance of its truth.
(10) But later, as I lived among the people here,
I knew how near to the life
Were the epitaphs that were ordered for them as they died.

But still I chiseled whatever they paid me to chisel
And made myself party to the false chronicles
(15) Of the stones,
Even as the historian does who writes
Without knowing the truth,
Or because he is influenced to hide it.

Edgar Lee Masters, "Richard Bone," Spoon River Anthology, 1915


2	What is Richard Bone’s occupation?
		A)	He manages a cemetery.
		B)	He is a sculptor of statues.
		C)	He is a historian.
		D)	He carves tombstones.
		E)	He writes epitaphs.


3	Which of the following people would identify most closely with the feelings of the speaker?
		A)	a funeral home manager consoling grieving people
		B)	a politician taking a bribe
		C)	a scientist falsifying research results
		D)	a man taking on a new job he is untrained for
		E)	a man who knows he has only a short time to live


4	What kind of mood does the speaker create?
		A)	fearful
		B)	angry
		C)	sarcastic
		D)	forgiving
		E)	slightly bitter

Questions 5 through 7 refer to the following poem.

WHERE IS THE SPEAKER?

	I Years Had Been from Home

	I years had been from home,
	And now, before the door,
	I dared not open, lest a face
	I never saw before

(5)	Stare vacant into mine
	And ask my business there.
	My business—just a life I left,
	Was such still dwelling there?

	I fumbled at my nerve,
(10)	I scanned the windows near;
	The silence like an ocean rolled,
	And broke against my ear.

	I laughed a wooden laugh
	That I could fear a door,
(15)	Who danger and the dead had faced,
	But never quaked before.

	I fitted to the latch
	My hand, with trembling care,
	Lest back the awful door should spring,
(20)	And leave me standing there.

	I moved my fingers off
	As cautiously as glass,
	And held my ears, and like a thief
	Fled gasping from the house.

	Emily Dickinson, "I Years Had Been from Home," 1891


5	What is the speaker concerned about?
		A)	asking a friend for help
		B)	facing the reality of her own death
		C)	returning to her old home and life
		D)	remembering the events of her past
		E)	explaining a long absence


6	What is the speaker saying in the fourth stanza?
		A)	She realizes she is facing death.
		B)	She is afraid of the dangerous people inside the house.
		C)	She has learned to laugh when she is afraid.
		D)	She is more afraid of being there than of facing death or danger.
		E)	She has never experienced real fear in her life.


7	Which of the following people most likely might experience what the speaker describes?
		A)	a wife recently divorced from her husband
		B)	a woman who has amnesia
		C)	a woman adopted at birth who is meeting her real parents for the first time
		D)	a woman who has just been told she has a fatal disease
		E)	a woman who ran away from home as a teenager

Questions 8 through 10 refer to the following poem.

HOW DO THE THREE PEOPLE AT TEA FEEL ABOUT EACH OTHER?

At Tea

The kettle descants in a cosy drone,
And the young wife looks in her husband’s face,
And then at her guest’s, and shows in her own
Her sense that she fills an envied place;
(5) And the visiting lady is all abloom,
And says there was never so sweet a room.

And the happy young housewife does not know
That the woman beside her was first his choice,
Till the fates ordained it could not be so. . . .
(10) Betraying nothing in look or voice
The guest sits smiling and sips her tea,
And he throws her a stray glance yearningly.

Thomas Hardy, "At Tea," 1896


8	What does the poet reveal about the wife’s beliefs in the third and fourth lines?
		A)	She envies the guest.
		B)	She believes the guest envies the husband.
		C)	She believes the husband envies the guest.
		D)	She believes the guest envies her.
		E)	She envies her husband.


9	Which of the following statements about the young wife is true?
		A)	She is disappointed because she is a housewife.
		B)	She is unaware that her husband preferred the other woman.
		C)	She is a hypocrite because she offers the lady tea.
		D)	She is mistrustful of the visiting lady.
		E)	She is resentful of her husband because he loves the visitor.


10	What is the effect of the last line of the poem?
		A)	It answers a question the reader may have about the husband.
		B)	It reveals a conflict between the wife and her husband.
		C)	It convinces the reader not to take the poem too seriously.
		D)	It brings the poem to a very abrupt end.
		E)	It shows that a secret will soon be revealed.

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