Q 01/05

In which city was Robert Frost born?

A) New York City

B) Chicago

C) San Francisco

D) Philadelphia

Answer · why

C) San Francisco

San Francisco was home until his father died of tuberculosis, and his mother then moved the family across the country to Massachusetts.

Q 02/05

What sent Frost and his family home from England to America?

A) The First World War

B) A teaching job offer

C) A family illness

D) An expired visa

Answer · why

A) The First World War

The First World War sent him home in 1915; he had left without a book to his name, and his second soon became an American best-seller.

Q 03/05

In a famous Frost poem, who 'must think it queer' to stop without a farmhouse near?

A) His horse

B) His dog

C) His wife

D) His young son

Answer · why

A) His horse

His horse stands in midwinter snow, yet Frost wrote the poem on a June morning in 1922 after staying up all night over another, longer poem.

Q 04/05

Which poem did Robert Frost warn audiences was 'a tricky poem, very tricky'?

A) After Apple-Picking

B) The Road Not Taken

C) Home Burial

D) Desert Places

Answer · why

B) The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken began as a gentle tease about a friend who always regretted his choice of path, but some read it as praise for bold choices.

Q 05/05

Which British poet, an indecisive walking companion, inspired Frost's poem about two diverging roads?

A) Siegfried Sassoon

B) Edward Thomas

C) Wilfred Owen

D) Rupert Brooke

Answer · why

B) Edward Thomas

Edward Thomas took the poem personally, and some think it helped tip him into enlisting; he was killed at Arras in 1917.