46 pages • 1 hour read
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
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Reading Comprehension Answers
1. B. The Mariner is “ancient” with a “long grey beard,” “skinny hand[s],” and a generally weathered, tortured appearance (Part 1).
2. D. The Mariner’s reasons for killing the albatross remain mysterious; he simply says, “With my cross-bow / I shot the albatross” (Part 1).
3. C. “Instead of the cross, the Albatross / About my neck was hung” (Part 2). One interpretation of this reference to the cross is that the bird was a Christ-like innocent that the Mariner has wantonly killed.
4. A. The Mariner suddenly realizes the beauty of the water snakes swimming around the ship and “blesse[s] them unaware” (Part 4). This appreciation of nature and/or God’s creation begins his redemption arc, causing the albatross to fall from his neck and enabling him to pray again.
5. D. The Mariner tells the Guest that praying together is “sweeter than the marriage-feast" (Part 7), and the Guest takes his words to heart; he turns back from the wedding and apparently spends the night reflecting on the Mariner’s story, rising “[a] sadder and a wiser man” (Part 7).
6. Antarctica. Though the poem does not name the place explicitly, the Mariner says the storm “chased [them] south” to a place where “it grew wondrous cold / And ice, mast-high, came floating by” (Part 1).
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