Dust of Snow · Class 10 English · First Flight Poetry: 133 MCQs with answers

Robert Frost

The other three wrote later poems in this book.

Held in regret

It is the last word of the poem.

Two stanzas of four lines each

Eight very short lines in all.

—

A crow shakes snow off a branch onto the speaker below

The speaker is standing beneath a hemlock tree.

Fine loose snow already lying on a branch, shaken off and scattered

It is not snowing anywhere in the poem.

A poisonous plant or tree with small white flowers

The choice of a poisonous tree is deliberate.

It gives his heart a change of mood and saves part of a regretted day

Both claims are carefully limited.

Why the day had been a day of regret

The cause of the bad mood is never named.

About thirty-four

Eleven of them are in the last two lines.

1 and 3 only

No snowfall is described anywhere in the poem.

The snow was already on the branch and was shaken down by the bird

Which is why it is a dust rather than a fall.

A remark that a little thing touches a larger thing

It is offered as a way into this poem's method.

Rued — held in regret

Hemlock is glossed as poisonous.

A regretted day was partly redeemed, and his heart was given a change of mood

The third part of the textbook's first question.

A tiny accident of nature partly rescues a day the speaker regretted

There is no landscape description in the poem at all.

That the poem chooses a crow and a hemlock rather than a songbird and a maple

The next topic is entirely about why those two were chosen.

It stops on its heaviest word and leaves it ringing

Nothing in the poem explains itself.

A record of one small moment, told without explanation

Eight lines, one event, no commentary.

—

—

—

Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include at least six of: the speaker under a hemlock tree; the crow shaking the branch; the meaning of 'a dust of snow' and the fact that no snowfall is described; the change of mood; the saving of part of a day; the gloss of 'rued'; the limited nature of both claim…

abab cdcd

Alternate rhyme in each stanza, not couplets.

Crow, me, snow, tree

Crow with snow, and me with tree.

Singers such as the nightingale, skylark, cuckoo and dove

The textbook asks the student to notice that a crow is not among them.

It is widely treated as a bird of ill omen

Black, harsh-voiced and a scavenger besides.

It is poisonous, and carries an association with death

The textbook asks why not a maple, an oak or a pine.

A maple, an oak or a pine

All of them more conventionally beautiful.

Sorrow, ill omen and a day gone wrong

A set textbook question, answered by the images themselves.

Two stresses each, of four or five syllables

The whole poem takes about fifteen seconds to read aloud.

Almost every word is a single syllable

There is not one adjective of praise in it either.

The running-on of the sense past the end of a line

Here it runs past the stanza break as well.

1 and 2 only

The lines carry only two stresses each.

It is abab cdcd — the rhymes alternate rather than forming couplets

Crow rhymes with snow, not with me.

'Rued', at the very end

It is also part of the cdcd rhyme, paired with 'mood'.

Frost chooses gloomy images and plain form so that a small brightness can be believed

Every choice in the poem pulls the same way.

The abab cdcd scheme, the two-stress lines, the monosyllables and the enjambment

Four points, and each can be shown from the text.

—

—

—

That a little thing touches a larger thing

Offered as a way into this poem's method.

A tiny event can be enough to change how a person feels

The textbook's own note calls it a moment with a larger significance.

None — it records the event and its effect and stops

There is no instruction to the reader anywhere in it.

Recall a time when a small moment changed a low day for them

The poem is meant to be tested against experience.

What happened, what it did, and the phrase 'some part of a day'

Forty to fifty words is not room for more.

Nothing in it is called beautiful, and there is no scenery at all

The bird is a crow and the tree is poisonous.

1 and 3 only

The cause of the bad day is never given.

The poem offers no advice at all; it reports and stops

Any conclusion is the reader's own.

'Some part of a day'

It proves the claim is limited rather than total.

A trivial accident can change a person's whole afternoon

Frost's own remark: a little thing touches a larger thing.

Frost builds a poem out of an event too small to mention, and makes it hold

Open with the argument, not with the title.

A record of one small accident that partly rescued a regretted day

Everything else in the poem follows from that.

—

—

It keeps the event small, dry and almost weightless

A small poem about a small event needs a small word.

The whole poem is a single sentence, with no main verb until line five

The first stanza is only the subject of the sentence.

The reader must carry the first stanza across the break before the sense completes

Which mirrors the experience the poem describes.

Only some part of the day is saved, not the whole of it

Examiners notice the difference between the two.

So that any reader's own bad day will fit the poem

A named sorrow would stop the poem being about everybody.

It has none — it is simply a bird moving on a branch

Nature here does not intend anything at all.

Nature does not set out to help, but noticing it can still change a person

The poem is about noticing rather than about a helpful universe.

After the very last word

Everything before it is one continuous sentence.

The opening of the second stanza

Everything before line five is only the subject of the sentence.

Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Thirty-four words for one shake of a branch.

The change is felt inwardly and emotionally, not merely noticed

Frost chooses the heart rather than the mind.

Because a bigger claim in so few words would sound false

A change of mood is believable; a cured life would not be.

It would fit only one person's experience instead of everybody's

The gap in the poem is where the reader stands.

The poem moves quickly and lightly, and then stops dead at the end

Most lines run to four or five syllables.

The poem is about rescue from a low mood, not about an ordinary pleasure

The word 'rued' does all of that work at the end.

Another person might have brushed the snow off and walked on unchanged

The poem records a man who noticed what happened to him.

It contains no main verb, so it is only half a sentence

The main verb arrives only in line five.

He writes that some part of the day was saved

Not the day — only part of it.

—

—

—

—

Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include: the smallness of the event and the choice of the word 'dust'; the modesty of 'a change of mood'; the significance of 'some part' rather than the whole day; the unnamed sorrow and why it protects the poem; the match between the poem's length and its claim; a…

—

Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include: the poem's length matching the event; the very short lines and their effect; the single sentence with no main verb in stanza one; the delayed verb in line five and the reader's experience of the gap; the alternating rhyme binding the stanzas; the single ful…

It matches the speaker's mood, so the change that follows is believable

The day had already been rued before the snow fell.

The one clean white thing is released out of the two darkest images

Sunlight through a maple would prove nothing.

As ordinary and slightly grim, doing good only by accident

Nothing in the poem is described as beautiful at all.

A universe that comforts people on purpose is harder to believe in

The crow is simply a bird moving on a branch.

Each rhyme is held back a line, pulling the ear forward to the line after next

Which suits a poem that refuses to stop until the last word.

Closed every two lines like little doors

The alternating scheme keeps the movement going instead.

It lets eight chopped-up lines work as a single sentence

And it stops the regular rhyme becoming sing-song.

Regular rhyme pulling one way and run-on sense pulling the other

The result is light, quick and unfussy.

The long 'o' of crow, snow and mood

There is also a repeated short 'e' in me and tree.

The images suggest gloom rather than standing for named things in a code

A fixed key makes the poem tidier and smaller than it is.

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

Both statements are true, but the poem's shape has nothing to do with why Frost picked a crow and a hemlock.

Nothing in it is called lovely, beautiful or bright

There is not one adjective of praise in thirty-four words.

An ordinary moment, recorded in ordinary words

People reach for short words when they mean something.

Dark images release a bright one, and the brightness is measured against them

Black bird, poisonous tree, and clean white snow.

Because the answer depends on noticing the poet's choices, not the scenery

The hints ask about birds, trees and what they stand for.

As an indifferent cause — it disturbs the branch without meaning anything by it

Nature in this poem does nothing on purpose.

A light, quick, unfussy movement that never turns sing-song

The two forces pull against each other.

Because praising the scene would undo the gloom the poem needs

The setting has to stay grim for the ending to work.

Repeated vowels tie the short lines quietly to one another

The long 'o' and the short 'e' do most of that work.

Each choice keeps the poem honest and moving rather than pretty and closed

Unpoetic images, plain words, and rhymes that pull forward.

—

—

—

—

Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include: the birds poetry usually names and the contrast with the crow; the crow's associations; the gloss of hemlock and the rejected maple, oak and pine; the match between the setting and the speaker's mood; the crow's lack of intention; the snow as the one bright…

—

Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include: the abab cdcd scheme with the rhyme words; the effect of alternate rhyme and the rejected alternative of couplets; the two-stress lines and the pace; the monosyllabic diction and the absence of adjectives of praise; the enjambment, including across the stan…

—

Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include: the crow's associations of ill omen; the poisonous hemlock and the rejected alternatives; the force of 'rued'; the absence of praise or description; the snow as the one bright thing released from the darkest images; the crow's indifference; a contrast with…

Because we normally assume a small cause can only have a small effect

The poem argues that cause and effect need not match in size.

It refuses to arrange the scene, keeping the gloom and the cold

Crow, hemlock, winter, and a day already rued.

The reader grants it everything, because nothing is exaggerated

A change of mood, and some part of a day.

Advice invites argument, while a plain report does not

Most readers draw a generous conclusion by themselves.

Attention — the only active thing in the poem is a man noticing

The crow, the snow and the tree all act without intention.

Brushed off the snow and walked on with the day unchanged

The difference is attention, not luck.

No — nature in it is indifferent and helps only by accident

What the poem values is the human capacity to be changed.

A poem of this kind is verified by memory rather than by argument

Everybody has had the experience and nobody thinks it worth mentioning.

Event, gloomy images, indifferent nature, limited claim, form

One hundred to a hundred and twenty words in all.

A short accurate quotation, and one sentence about form

Most answers contain no comment on form at all.

It closes on the trouble rather than the relief, keeping the poem honest

The hope is real, but the bad day is not pretended away.

It teaches nothing — it records one afternoon and leaves conclusions to the reader

There is no line of advice anywhere in it.

A is true, but R is false

There is one bird, a crow, and no sunshine anywhere in the poem. The assertion stands; the reason does not.

Every reader can put their own trouble into the gap

The gap in the poem is where the reader stands.

Happy, sad, beautiful and nature

Although the poem is about all four of them.

Very little — only a few pronouns refer to him at all

The event, not the self, is the subject.

It shows the poem is about noticing, not about a helpful universe

Most weak answers claim the opposite.

The poem reports rather than argues, so the reader is not pushed

Advice invites resistance; a report invites agreement.

Nothing is prescribed — but the poem shows one being allowed to count

The poem demonstrates rather than instructs.

It names an experience everybody has had and nobody thinks worth mentioning

Fifteen seconds of reading, and instant recognition.

The reader measuring the sorrow against the snow and finding it absurd

A named grief would invite exactly that measurement.

It admits the day was genuinely bad, so the partial rescue rings true

The relief is real precisely because it is partial.

Because it is the exact measure of what the poem claims

Students routinely upgrade it to the whole day.

—

—

—

—

—

Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include: the theme stated, with the textbook's quotation from Frost; the point about cause and effect not matching in size; the deliberately gloomy setting with crow, hemlock, cold and a rued day; the limited claim with 'some part of a day' quoted; the absence of an…

—

Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include: the crow, the snow and the tree all acting without intention; the ordinariness of the event considered from outside; the speaker's noticing as the only active element; the imagined alternative in which nothing changes; the connection to the poem's refusal t…

—

Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Accept any honest personal experience; the marks are for the linking, not the anecdote. Content should include: a specific small incident that changed a low mood; recognition that the agent was indifferent; recognition that the setting was not arranged to be pleasant; the limited…