When Great Trees fall – MCQs

1. What does "When great trees fall" metaphorically represent?
   a) Natural disasters
   b) The death and loss of great people who influence us
   c) Environmental destruction
   d) Economic collapse
2. What do "rocks on distant hills shudder" symbolize?
   a) Earthquakes
   b) The universal impact and far-reaching effects of losing a great person
   c) Geological instability
   d) Loud noises
3. How do the lions react when great trees fall?
   a) They roar loudly
   b) They hunker down in tall grasses
   c) They run away immediately
   d) They stay calm
4. What do even elephants "lumber after"?
   a) Food
   b) Water
   c) Safety
   d) Other elephants
5. In the second stanza, what "recoil into silence"?
   a) The trees
   b) The animals
   c) Small things (representing small, vulnerable people)
   d) Rocks
6. What are the senses "eroded beyond"?
   a) Feeling
   b) Touch
   c) Fear
   d) Pain
7. When great souls die, how does the air around us become?
   a) Warm and comforting
   b) Light, rare, and sterile
   c) Dark and heavy
   d) Fresh and clear
8. What is "suddenly sharpened" when great souls die?
   a) Our sight
   b) Our hearing
   c) Our memory
   d) Our thoughts
9. What does memory "gnaw on"?
   a) Broken objects
   b) Kind words unsaid and promised walks never taken
   c) Food
   d) Old clothes
10. What does "hurtful clarity" refer to?
    a) Bright light
    b) Clear vision with painful realization
    c) A kind of weather
    d) Loud noise
11. "Our reality, bound to them, takes leave of us" means:
    a) Our life changes because our world was connected to them
    b) Our reality says goodbye
    c) We can escape our reality
    d) Our life improves
12. What happens to our souls when great souls die?
    a) They grow stronger
    b) They remain unchanged
    c) They shrink and become wizened (shriveled/diminished)
    d) They disappear completely
13. What falls away when great souls die?
    a) Our bodies
    b) Our minds, formed and informed by their radiance
    c) Our houses
    d) Our clothes
14. How are we described after the death of a great soul?
    a) Angry and furious
    b) Reduced to the unutterable ignorance of dark, cold caves
    c) Peaceful and serene
    d) Confused but hopeful
15. The poem's form is primarily:
    a) Sonnet
    b) Free verse with varied line lengths and enjambment
    c) Terza rima
    d) Rhyming couplets
16. What extended metaphor dominates the poem?
    a) Animals in nature
    b) Natural disasters and weather
    c) The falling of great trees representing the death of great people
    d) Forest ecology
17. "After a period peace blooms, slowly and always / irregularly" suggests:
    a) Healing is immediate
    b) We never recover from loss
    c) Healing from grief is gradual, uneven and takes time
    d) Peace comes suddenly
18. What do our "restored senses whisper to us"?
    a) Forget the past
    b) Move on quickly
    c) "They existed. They existed."—the affirmation that the great soul lived
    d) Cry loudly
19. The final message "we can be / better. For they existed" conveys:
    a) Despair and hopelessness
    b) Hope, healing and the inspiration to live better because of their influence
    c) Forgetfulness
    d) Anger at their death
20. The poem reflects on which human experiences?
    a) Joy and celebration
    b) Loss, grief, regret, healing and the legacy of influence
    c) Fear of nature
    d) Animal behavior
21. Maya Angelou wrote this poem in response to:
    a) Her own childhood
    b) A natural disaster
    c) The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on her birthday (April 4, 1968)
    d) A personal illness
22. The primary literary device used throughout is:
    a) Simile
    b) Alliteration only
    c) Extended metaphor (great trees = great people) with personification and imagery
    d) Onomatopoeia

Answers: 1-b, 2-b, 3-b, 4-c, 5-c, 6-c, 7-b, 8-c, 9-b, 10-b, 11-a, 12-c, 13-b, 14-b, 15-b, 16-c, 17-c, 18-c, 19-b, 20-b, 21-c, 22-c.