Poetry Elements — Answer Key
Part A: Multiple Choice
Circle the best answer for each question.
1. Read: 'The cat sat on the mat. / It looked at the bat. / Then it took a nap. / And gave a tiny clap.' What is the rhyme scheme?
A) AABB
B) ABAB
C) ABBA
D) AAAA
Lines 1 and 2 end in -at; lines 3 and 4 end in -ap, giving AABB.
2. Which line uses alliteration most clearly?
A) The wind blew softly across the field.
B) Silly snakes slid swiftly southward.
C) Birds sang up in the tall tree.
D) We watched the clouds drift by.
Silly, snakes, slid, swiftly, and southward all begin with s sounds.
3. A poem has two stanzas. Each stanza has four lines. How many lines in total?
A) Six lines
B) Seven lines
C) Eight lines
D) Ten lines
Two stanzas of four lines equal eight lines together.
4. Which sentence is written as prose, not poetry?
A) The moon shone bright,
B) On a cool, calm night,
C) While stars danced above,
D) The night was calm and the moon shone brightly while stars seemed to dance above us.
Option D is one long sentence in paragraph style, the mark of prose.
Part B: Fill in the Blank
Write the correct answer on each line.
1. A poem with the rhyme pattern A A B B has end rhymes in lines 1, 2 and lines 3, 4.
In AABB, lines 3 and 4 rhyme as the second pair.
2. A short poem has 12 lines split into stanzas of four lines each. It has 3 stanzas.
Twelve lines divided by four lines per stanza equal three stanzas.
3. If a four-line poem repeats the line 'Run fast' three times, the device used is repetition.
Repeating the same line for emphasis is called repetition.
4. The poetic word for a single row of words is a line.
A line is the smallest unit of a poem, made of one row of words.
5. A poem written in paragraphs without line breaks would actually be prose.
Without lines and stanzas, the writing fits prose, not poetry.