A Contribution to Statistics

Wisława Szymborska is

• Polish

• Swede

• Swiss

• Italian

In her poem (A Contribution to Statistics), Wisława Szymborska analyse people

• in their actual number (7.2 billion)

• after scaling them down to 1000,000 people

• after scaling them down to 100 people

Wisława Szymborska's poetry is known for dealing with

• philosophy and human nature

• love and romance

• nature and beauty

"glad to lend a hand"

is an example of which literary device

• shift

• idiom

• parallelism

Those who always know better—fifty-two,

doubting every step —nearly all the rest,

This is a good example of

• parallelism (repeated grammatical structure)

• idiom

• shift

glad to lend a hand

if it doesn’t take too long

—as high as forty-nine,

In the second line above, there is an example of

• idiom

• shift (in mood or focus)

• parallelism

glad to lend a hand

if it doesn’t take too long

—as high as forty-nine,

The first line seems very positive, but the second line shifts to show that convenience may be more important than kindness for some people.

• True

• False

Out of a hundred people

Those who always know better

—fifty-two,

The poet is speaking about which human characteristic?

• Overconfidence/ Arrogance

• Love to help people

• Love of knowledge

suffering illusions

induced by fleeting youth

—sixty, give or take a few,

These are people who

• are haunted by major mistakes they committed when they were young

• were tricked when they were young

• have physical illnesses in their old age

living in constant fear

of someone or something

—seventy-seven,

This is a characteristic related to

• paranoia

• anxiety

• insecurity

• all the answers