Poetry Elements — Answer Key
Part A: Multiple Choice
Circle the best answer for each question.
1. Read: 'Big bears boldly bound, / Through the wide green ground. / Soft songs softly sing, / Welcoming the spring.' Which device appears in line 1?
A) Alliteration
B) Onomatopoeia
C) Repetition
D) End rhyme only
Big, bears, boldly, and bound all start with the b sound, an alliteration.
2. Using the same poem, what is the rhyme scheme?
A) ABAB
B) AABB
C) ABBA
D) ABCD
Lines 1-2 end in -ound and lines 3-4 in -ing, showing AABB.
3. How many stanzas and lines are in the poem above?
A) Two stanzas, eight lines
B) One stanza, two lines
C) One stanza, four lines
D) Four stanzas, one line
All four lines sit together as a single quatrain stanza.
4. Which detail best shows the poem is poetry, not prose?
A) It tells a story.
B) It uses commas.
C) It has characters.
D) It is written in lines and stanzas with rhyme.
Lines, stanzas, and rhyme are the structural marks of poetry.
Part B: Fill in the Blank
Write the correct answer on each line.
1. In the poem above, the word bound rhymes with ground.
Bound and ground share the -ound ending sound, a clear rhyme.
2. The repeated s sound in 'Soft songs softly sing' is called alliteration.
Soft, songs, softly, and sing repeat the s sound at the start.
3. The poem's four lines together form one stanza.
Four lines without a blank line break form one quatrain stanza.
4. If a writer rewrote the poem as one paragraph with no line breaks, it would become prose.
Removing line and stanza breaks turns poetry into prose.
5. A word like buzz that copies a real sound is called onomatopoeia.
Buzz spells the noise itself, the definition of onomatopoeia.