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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 did the naked man on Southern Boulevard wield as a weapon?
(a) A handgun.
(b) A baseball bat.
(c) A butcher knife.
(d) A whip.

2. Why were the teens carrying the items out of the Simpson Street apartment building?
(a) They stole them from another resident.
(b) They had bought them from another resident.
(c) They were carrying them out of their own apartment for safety.
(d) They were carrying them out for another resident.

3. What is the Irish way of making tea, as described by Smith in Chapter 7?
(a) Black tea with sugar.
(b) Half tea and half milk.
(c) Black tea plain.
(d) Cream and sugar.

4. How many men competed for firemen positions that day?
(a) 5,000.
(b) 10,000.
(c) 6,000.
(d) 8,000.

5. Why was Pat, Dennis' wife, willing to accept his remaining in a dangerous profession?
(a) She was proud that her husband was brave.
(b) She knew his salary would steadily increase and support the family.
(c) She knew he was doing what he thought was right for the whole family.
(d) She knew his job was stable.

Short Answer Questions

1. How did the firefighters eventually subdue the naked man on Southern Boulevard?

2. For which radical group was the group of Park Avenue residents raising money in the magazine article read by Smith in Chapter 7?

3. How was the bleeding woman who ran into the station for help injured in Chapter 9?

4. Why did the city fence off the empty lots near the fire station?

5. Why did Smith not eat hamburgers when fellow firefighters prepared them for the station dinner?

Short Essay Questions

1. What did Smith find most frustrating about the attack on the firefighters (the dropped garbage can) in Chapter 8?

2. Why does Smith suggest that perhaps even with guidance, South Bronx resident Tina de Vega may still have ended up on drugs and prostituting herself?

3. Is the poverty seen by Dennis Smith in the South Bronx different than the poverty in which he grew up?

4. In what way can the training firemen undergo never be completely sufficient?

5. How did the firefighters react to the call in Chapter 7 in which they tended to a man who almost overdosed on drugs?

6. Why were some of the firefighters unwilling to help out at the department's occasional parties for neighborhood kids?

7. Did Smith's wife appreciate her husband's devotion to his job?

8. Why did Smith think it was useless to argue with the sneering youths hanging around a fireman's car in Chapter 10?

9. Why were the men uneasy as they begin the training drill in Chapter 6?

10. In what key way does Smith say the modern firefighting exams are different from those of the past?

(see the answer keys)

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