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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is Phoebe's job after everyone has finished with lunch?
(a) To pick up everything, throw it away, and go home.
(b) To pick up everything, put it all in the basket, and bring the basket home.
(c) To leave the basket and the leftovers for Jack to bring back later.
(d) To fill the basket with dirty laundry and bring it home.

2. What finally ruins Jack's fantasy stories when he is driving the tractor in the field?
(a) Despair.
(b) Hunger.
(c) Terror.
(d) Sleep.

3. What does Jack tell the girls of his made-up stories?
(a) He confesses to his desire to run away.
(b) He confesses his worthlessness and names his faults.
(c) He confides in them his fears about his sister.
(d) He confides in them about his anger at this father.

4. What do his co-workers accept about Dale Hawthorne since his son has died?
(a) HIs father's ways of handling his brother's death.
(b) His father's death.
(c) His father's refusal to work during harvest.
(d) His father's drinking.

5. For what does Jack's father often abandon his wife and children?
(a) Drinking binges.
(b) Trips to the city to gamble.
(c) Love affairs with other women.
(d) Camping in the Rockies.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is it that makes Jack crazy once his good feelings wear off?

2. Who are the heroines of Jack's stories?

3. As Jack walks down the road, what is on his left?

4. In Dale's story, whose skull is Lord Byron trying to make into a drinking cup?

5. How does Jack feel when he is in the barn with the cows and other animals?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Jack respond to Yegudkin's performance on the French horn? How is the performance described?

2. When describing Jack's routines in the early mornings, the author uses the word "sweet" more than once. What things are sweet about the mornings for Jack?

3. What conclusion does Jack come to about himself after realizing he does not love people as well as he should? How does he react to his own conclusions?

4. Jack's father has been gone over three weeks. In what position does Jack find himself? Have his responsibilities changed? Who is he working with now?

5. How does the narrator describe the machinery Jack drives on the farm? Why is this image so powerful? How does it compare to the usual image associated with farm equipment?

6. Although Jack's morning routines are pleasant, his guilt creeps into his day and the illusions of the morning are shattered. How does he behave as the day continues? What changes for him?

7. What are some of the ways Dale Hawthorne deals with his grief over the death of his son? What comment does the narrator make as to people's opinion of Hawthorne's behavior?

8. With whom does Jack begin studying French horn? What information are we given about this teacher in this section? Where does he teach?

9. As Jack rides the tractor after the accident and tells his stories of woe, how does he react to who he has become?

10. Jack begins to play the French horn in earnest. Why does he do this? Where does he practice?

(see the answer keys)

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