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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. To the narrator, New Jersey symbolizes ___________________.

2. What does the narrator think as he is stalled in this chapter?

3. From what city does the summer camp bus depart?

4. What was the narrator's army radar company?

5. Where is the narrator as this chapter begins?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does the book never mention the narrator's wartime experiences?

2. What prompts the narrator to think of his childhood summer camp days?

3. What is the premise of A FISTFUL OF FIG NEWTONS?

4. Who is Ernie and what happened to him during the narrator's story of KP duty?

5. How did the fat Chipmunk earn the name of Skunk?

6. How does the narrator make comparisons between Skunk from summer camp and Umbaugh from college?

7. Why was the narrator underwhelmed by his summer camp experience?

8. What are the rules of the contest Umbaugh suggested?

9. Why does the narrator question his impatience to get through the tunnel?

10. How did Proust and Balzac block out the world and what does that same thing for the narrator?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Describe the format of the book. How does the narrator distinguish between current activity and flashbacks to his past? What is the difference is style and tone? Are the differentiations separated visually in any way? How did this improve your reading of this book?

Essay Topic 2

Explain the narrator's childhood growing up in a small town in Indiana in the 1930s. What was his family life like? Who were his friends? What were his school experiences? How did these people and experiences form him into the adult he would become?

Essay Topic 3

There are several events of foreshadowing in the stories. Define foreshadowing. Cite at least two situations in the stories that serve as foreshadowing.

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