Section B Poetry: Practice Questions

• a.It denotes the physical labor required to build the city's infrastructure.
• b.It describes the intellectual superiority of the city dwellers over rural workers.
• c.It suggests that the restrictions on human freedom are self-imposed or products of social conditioning and internalised fear.
• d.It refers to the actual iron chains used to restrain prisoners in Newgate.

• a.It suggests that the children's suffering is a necessary path to spiritual enlightenment.
• b.It provides a literal roadmap for how the children might escape their employers.
• c.It exposes how religious promises of a heavenly afterlife are used to justify the exploitation of children in the present.
• d.It demonstrates Blake's genuine belief that the chimney sweepers were happy in their work.

• a.They challenge the oppressor's expectations and reinforce the speaker's defiance.
• b.They express a sense of genuine confusion regarding the reader's hostility.
• c.They signal a transition from a tone of resilience to one of submission.
• d.They serve to undermine the speaker's confidence by seeking external validation.

• a.It suggests that trees possess a literal language that humans are too dull to hear.
• b.It emphasizes the trees' desire to escape their stationary existence and speak to the speaker.
• c.It implies that the growth of the trees is a supernatural event beyond scientific explanation.
• d.It creates a sense of imminent meaning or renewal that ultimately remains elusive or cyclical.

• a.The refrain indicates a sense of growing insecurity as the poem progresses.
• b.The refrain creates a celebratory, percussive beat that reinforces self-affirmation.
• c.The percussive beat is meant to mimic the sound of an industrial factory.
• d.The shift in length suggests the speaker is running out of attributes to describe.

Write your answer out first, then check it against the worked solution.