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There Will Come Soft Rains Study Review

Total questions: 17

Worksheet time: 1hrs 21mins

Name
Class
Date
1.

How does the author arrange the chronological order in this story?

a)

He uses of a voice-clock which announces the time throughout the day.

b)

He numbers each section of the story.

c)

He discusses how the dog's hunger increases.

2.

What is the story's setting?

a)

Sometime in the near future

b)

August 4, 2026, after a nuclear blast

c)

May 5, 2012

d)

In the distant future

3.

How does the voice clock respond to the fact that no one reacts to it?

a)

It asks why no-one is responding.

b)

It becomes louder.

c)

It turns itself off.

d)

It continues doing its job.

4.

What type of figurative language is the following sentence?

"It quivered at each sound, the house did."

a)

imagery

b)

personification

c)

oxymoron

d)

allusion

5.

Which sentence contains personification?

a)

The room was ablaze in an instant.

b)

The wall sprays let down showers of mechanical rain.

c)

At ten o'clock the house began to die.

d)

The dog was gone.

6.

What was the father doing when the bomb hit?

a)

Throwing a ball

b)

Working in the garden

c)

Mowing the yard

7.

What is on the west side of the house?

a)

A garden

b)

The silhouettes of the deceased family members

c)

The kitchen

d)

A dying dog

8.

What does Sara Teasdale's poem suggest about humanity and nature?

a)

Technology is more important than humans.

b)

Nature will move on after people are gone.

c)

Humans are essential for nature to continue.

d)

There is no connection.

9.

Which of the following lines gives readers a hint about how the city was destroyed?

a)

A falling tree bough crashed through the kitchen window. Cleaning solvent, bottled, shattered over the stove. The room was ablaze in an instant.

b)

It quivered at each sound, the house did. If a sparrow brushed a window, the shade snapped up.

c)

At night the ruined city gave off a radioactive glow which could be seen for miles.

d)

Heat snapped mirrors like the first brittle winter ice. And the voices wailed. Fire, fire, run, run, like a tragic nursery rhyme...

10.

What themes do this poem and the story share?


There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,

And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;


And frogs in the pools singing at night,

And wild plum trees in tremulous white;


Robins will wear their feathery fire,

Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;


And not one will know of the war,

not one Will care at last when it is done.


Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,

If mankind perished utterly;


And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn

Would scarcely know that we were gone."

a)

Both share the theme that nature does not care about humans destroying themselves.

b)

Both share the theme that life would carry on if humans were to destroy themselves in war.

c)

Both share the theme that nature is beautiful and springtime is filled with rain.

d)

Both share the theme that nature doesn't like to be disturbed.

11.

In the quote, "The house was an altar with 10,000 attendants, big, small, servicing, attending in choirs. But the gods had gone away and the ritual of the religion continued senselessly, uselessly..." what type of figurative language is used?

a)

metaphor

b)

hyperbole

c)

simile

d)

onomatopoeia

12.

Reread lines 3 and 4:


There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground

And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;


What words contribute to the tranquil mood?

a)

ground and sound

b)

smell and circling

c)

there and their

d)

soft and shimmering

13.

Which lines show how nature would react if wars destroyed humanity?

a)

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree

If mankind perished utterly

b)

And wild plum trees in tremulous white

c)

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground

d)

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,

Would scarcely know that we were gone

14.

Which best describes the form, or structure, of the poem? (Choose 2)

a)

The poem is in 6 sing-song couplets, beginning with a beautiful, descriptive nature scene.

b)

The poem is written with very long lines of details.

c)

The poem reveals that there are no more humans at the very end.

d)

The poem is divided in two showing conflict between nature and humans.

15.

Reread this line:

"Out of warrens in the wall, tiny robot mice darted."


Which sentence uses the word "warrens" correctly?

a)

The countries that lost the battle were known as warrens.

b)

Mom gave him several warrens before she grounded him.

c)

They couldn't search the house because they didn't have warrens.

d)

All five rabbits retreated to their warrens where you could not reach them.

16.

Reread this line:

"In the last instant under the fire avalanche, other choruses, oblivious, could be heard announcing the time, playing music, cutting the lawn by remote-control mower..."


Oblivious most likely means...

a)

easily understood

b)

destructive

c)

not aware or not concerned

d)

purposeful

17.

Reread this line:

"...It had shut up its windows and drawn shades in an old-maidenly preoccupation with self-protection which bordered on a mechanical paranoia."


Which sentence uses the word paranoia correctly?

a)

Jake kept his money under his mattress because of his paranoia about crooked bankers.

b)

The twinkling stars of the sky are the things of paranoia for children.

c)

She took all her frustration and paranoia out on him.

d)

It takes just as much paranoia for a knight to go to battle as it does for a new student to enter a new classroom.