The Odyssey Test: Books 14-24, Pre-AP

Look as the list of terms below. Choose the term that best describes the quote for Questions 1-6.

  1. loyalty
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  1. Homeric simile
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  1. curiosity / temptation
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  1. hospitality
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  1. cunning

  1. “As though I had not trouble enough already, / given me by the gods, my master gone, / true king that he was. I hang on here, still mourning for him, raising pigs of his [Odysseus’]…”loyalty
  2. “Think of a man whose dear and only son, / born to him in exile, reared with labor, / has lived ten years abroad and now returns: / how would that man embrace his son! Just so / the herdsman [Eumaeus] clapped his arms around Telemachus / and covered him with kisses…”Homeric simile
  3. “Come to the cabin. You’re a wanderer too. / You must eat something, drink some wine, and tell me where you are from and the hard time you’ve seen.”hospitality
  4. “…death and darkness in that instant closed / the eyes of Argos, who had seen his master, / Odysseus, after twenty years.”loyalty
  5. “So every day I wove on the great loom, / but every night by torchlight I unwove it [Laertes’ shroud]; / and so for three years I deceived the Akhaians.”cunning
  6. Odysseus’ “heart cried out within him / the way a brach with whelps between her legs / would howl and bristle in anger—so / the hackles of his heart rose at that laughter.”Homeric simile

Look as the list of terms below. Choose the term that best describes the quote for Questions 7-12.

  1. disguise
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  1. divine intervention
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  1. importance of family/heritage
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  1. importance of home
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  1. storytelling

  1. “Down on his luck, all right: carries himself like a captain. / How the immortal gods can change and drag us down/ once they begin to spin dark days for us!”divine intervention
  2. “Recall the past deeds and the strange adventures. / I could stay up until the sacred Dawn / as long as you might wish to tell your story.”storytelling
  3. “Penelope, come down, / see with your own eyes what all these years you longed for! / Odysseus is here!”importance of family
  4. “An old trunk of olive / grew like a pillar on our building plot, / and I laid out our bedroom round that tree, / lined up the stone walls, built the walls and roof, / gave it a doorway and smooth-fitting doors...Could someone else’s hand / have sawn that trunk and dragged the frame away?”

importance of home

  1. “Pallas Athena touched off in the suitors / a fit of laughter, uncontrollable. / She drove them into nightmare, till they wheezed / and neighed as though with jaws no longer theirs, while blood defiled their meat…”divine intervention
  2. “The royal pair mingled in love again / and afterward lay reveling stories…”storytelling

Choose the best answer for each question to demonstrate comprehension skills of The Odyssey.

Use the following quote to answer Questions 13-15:“Then, throwing / his arms around this marvel of a father / Telemachus began to weep. Salt tears / rose from the wells of longing in both men, / and cries burst from both as keen and fluttering / as those of the great taloned hawk, / whose nestlings farmers take before they fly. / So helplessly they cried, pouring out tears, / and might have gone on weeping so till sundown…”

  1. This quote can best be described as—
  2. a Homeric metaphor
  3. a Homeric simile
  4. a homonym
  5. personification
  6. Which summary best describes the quote?
  1. Cries burst from both as keen and fluttering as those of the great taloned hawk whose nestlings farmers take before they fly. So helplessly they cried, pouring out tears.
  2. Telemachus and Odysseus cry like a farmer whose babies are stolen by a hawk.
  3. Telemachus and Odysseus cry like the weeping of sundown after Telemachus hugs Odysseus.
  4. Telemachus hugs Odysseus, and then they both helplessly cry like a hawk who cries when a farmer takes away its babies.
  1. What motif is best portrayed in the quote?
  2. disguise
  3. importance of family
  4. hospitality
  5. loyalty
  6. Read the following Homeric simile: “Think of a man whose dear and only son, / born to him in exile, reared with labor, / has lived ten years abroad and now returns: / how would that man embrace his son! Just so / the herdsman [Eumaeus] clapped his arms around Telemachus / and covered him with kisses…”

What type of relationship does Eumaeus have with Telemachus?

  1. Eumaeus has a fatherly love towards Telemachus.
  2. Eumaeus is Telemachus’ biological father.
  3. Telemachus is bitter towards Eumaeus.
  4. Telemachus treats Eumaeus as a laborer.
  1. What motif does Argus—Odysseus’ dog—best symbolize?
  1. disguise
  2. importance of family
  3. importance of home
  4. loyalty
  1. What does Eumaeus mean when he says, “You know how servants are: without a master / they have no will to labor, or excel. / For Zeus who views the wide world takes away/ half the manhood of a man, that day / he goes into captivity and slavery”?
  1. Captivity and slavery is created by Zeus because servants have no will to labor, or excel.
  2. Masters make slaves work for a living because Zeus orders them to do so.
  3. Slaves depend on a master to have a purpose in life because slaves lose a sense of human worth.
  4. Slaves have no will to labor or excel because they are lazy.
  1. How was Penelope able to delay marriage for three years?
  1. Penelope promised to marry a suitor once Telemachus returned from his travels.
  2. Penelope promised to marry a suitor once the house for Laertes (Odysseus’ father) was built, but she burnt the house down before it was finished.
  3. Penelope promised to marry a suitor once the shroud for Laertes (Odysseus’ father) was finished, but she was finally caught unweaving the shroud every night.
  4. None of the above
  1. How does Euryclea (Eurkleia) recognize Odysseus?
  1. Euryclea has known Odysseus for his entire life and is able to see through his cunning deceit.
  2. Odysseus reveals his identity voluntarily to Euryclea because he trusts her.
  3. While climbing a tree as a boy, Odysseus fell and broke his elbow; Euryclea recognizes the disfigured bone.
  4. While hunting, a boar’s tusk tore into Odysseus’ thigh; Euryclea recognizes the scar.
  1. How does Odysseus react to Euryclea uncovering his identity?
  1. Odysseus embraces Euryclea and is impressed by her wits.
  2. Odysseus expects Euryclea to be excited when he voluntarily reveals his identity to her.
  3. Odysseus threatens to kill Euryclea if she gives away his identity.
  4. Odysseus believes Euryclea to be a goddess.
  1. How does Penelope decide to choose a husband?
  1. Penelope challenges each suitor to move her (and Odysseus’) bed.
  2. Penelope will choose the suitor who can string Odysseus’ bow.
  3. The suitors will place their names in a golden vase encrusted with jewels, and Penelope will choose the 20th suitor drawn to represent the years Odysseus has been away.
  4. Antinoos chooses a suitor for Penelope.
  1. What does Melanthios (the foil of Philoilios and Eumaeus) do to create a disadvantage for Odysseus and Telemachus?
  1. Melanthios retrieves the weapons for the suitors.
  2. Melanthios creates new weapons with the help of Hephaestus.
  3. Melanthiosstabs Telemachus in the shoulder blade before the fight begins.
  4. Melanthios does not do anything with the weapons.
  1. Read the following quote: “Think of a catch that fishermen haul in to a half-moon bay / in a fine-meshed net from the whitecaps of the sea: / how all are poured out on the sand, in throes for the salt sea, / twitching their cold lives away in Helios’ fiery air: / so lay the suitors heaped on one another.”

Which paraphrase best describes the Homeric simile?

  1. Fishermen’s catch are poured out on the sand in throes for the salt sea.
  2. The catch of fishermen is hauled into a half-moon bay and is poured out on the sand and die.
  3. The dead suitors are heaped on one another like dead fish that have been poured onto the sand after being caught by fishermen.
  4. The suitors are heaped on one another as they twitch their cold lives away because of Odysseus.
  1. Which phrase best describes Odysseus’ appearance in the form of a Homeric simile?
  1. “Athena lent him beauty, head to foot.”
  2. “Think of gold infused on silver by a craftsman, whose far art / Hephaestus taught him, or Athena: one / whose work moves to delight: just so she lavished / beauty over Odysseus’ head and shoulders.”
  3. “Saying no more, / she tipped her golden wand upon the man, / making his clad pure white and the knit tunic / fresh around him. Lithe and young she made him, / ruddy with sun, / his jawline clean, the beard / no longer grew upon his chin.”
  4. Both B and C
  1. What is the test Penelope plays on Odysseus to ensure he is really her husband?
  1. Penelope makes Odysseus string his bow.
  2. Penelope orders their bed to be moved.
  3. Odysseus’ name must be chosen from the vase through divine intervention.
  4. Odysseus must show the scar on his leg.
  1. How does Odysseus decide to greet his father, Laertes?
  1. Odysseus initially deceivesLaertes by not revealing his true identity.
  2. Odysseus immediately grabs Laertes around the shoulders and the two cry with joy.
  3. Odysseus immediately calls Laertes over to the shed to show his father the gifts of treasure, oxen, and sheep.
  4. Odysseus initially has Telemachus send news to Laertes of his return, and Laertes visits Odysseus at Eumaeus’ hut.
  1. How is the clash between the suitors’ families and Odysseus settled?
  1. Odysseus kills Eupeithes (Antinoos’ dad), which scares the other suitors’ families into submission.
  2. After Odysseus kills Eupeithes (Antinoos’ dad), Athena and Zeus demand that the revenge stop, so Odysseus, Telemachus, and the suitors’ families make peace.
  3. Zeus and Athena send a plague to the suitors’ families. When the youngest child of each family dies from disease, the surviving family members eventually sacrifice to the gods and beg for peace.
  4. Zeus sends a lightning bolt to destroy Eupeithes (Antinoos’ dad), which scares the other suitors’ families into submission.