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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. Where are Sophie and Cody, when Sophie tell him the story of Bompie at the ocean?

2. Why does Uncle Stew order Cody to turn off the electrics?

3. What does Uncle Dock injure in the wave?

4. Does Bompie remember the stories Sophie tells him?

5. What does Sophie compare the experience of the wave to?

Short Essay Questions

1. In Sophie's story about Bompie and his father, why does Bompie visit his father?

2. What do Sophie and Cody do to the sails of the boat, when they finally get them up again?

3. As Dock tells his story of the little girl, what does Cody realize about Sophie's stories?

4. How does Sophie feel about seeing Bompie, as the travelers near their destination?

5. What does Cody notice that Sophie does when retelling the story of their journey?

6. What is the weather like, the first night on the open ocean?

7. What injury does Cody sustain in the large wave that hits the boat?

8. How does Sophie feel about the ham radio?

9. What happens to Bompie in the story of the swimming hole?

10. How does Sophie describe the color of the sea?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the importance of family in the novel.

1) How does Sophie's status as an orphan affect her sense of family? Is she, in some ways, not part of the family? How do her parents and Bompie make her part of their family?

2) How does family help build identity? How does family help the characters have a sense of themselves and their place in the world?

3) How does Sophie lose her birth family even more because of her repressed memories? How does the loss of these memories, in addition to the death of her parents and grandfather, affect her?

4) What is Cody's relationship with his father like? What does their relationship reveal about family?

Essay Topic 2

Sophie's journey in "The Wanderer" is something she must do to face her fears. Discuss facing fears in "The Wanderer".

1) Why do Sophie's parents allow her to go on the journey? What does her father mean when he says it's just something she has to do?

2) Why does Sophie say that in her stories Bompie keeps going in the water because he is facing his fears?

3) What are Sophie's fears of the ocean? How does she face them though the course of the novel?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the novel's structure.

1) Why does the author divide the novel into parts? What is the significance of the six parts of the novel?

2) Why do the chapters of the novel vary in length? What is different about the very short chapters? What role do these short chapters play in the novel?

(see the answer keys)

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