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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who is Baal?
(a) A pre-Christian god.
(b) The dog that guards hell in Greek mythology.
(c) An Egyptian pharaoh.
(d) A Mesopotamian warrior.

2. What is the likely purpose of inserting the house's "dialogue" ("Help, help! Fire! Run, run!") into the scene that describes the fire consuming the house?
(a) It clarifies the order in which the house is burning, because the house can still "speak."
(b) It reminds the reader that the house is a living thing.
(c) It reminds the reader of the death of the family.
(d) It reinforces how helpless and pointless the technology is in the face of nature's power.

3. What is the probable purpose of emphasizing the roundness of the smoke plume and the great quantity of smoke?
(a) It reminds the reader of a nuclear explosion.
(b) It reinforces the "technology versus nature" motif.
(c) It points out how little chance the house really had.
(d) There is an implied comparison to a woman's skirts.

4. The use of sentence fragments in the description of the spreading fire is probably intended to create what effect?
(a) Apathy and resignation.
(b) Chaos and speed.
(c) Confusion and doubt.
(d) Distance and irony.

5. What causes the fire to eventually win the battle with the house?
(a) The house stops defending itself.
(b) The fire reaches the house's "brain" in the attic.
(c) The wind creates flames so intense the house cannot fight them.
(d) The rain stops.

6. What does Bradbury compare to Baal?
(a) The stove.
(b) The incinerator.
(c) The dog.
(d) The house.

7. What is strange about how the nursery reacts to the fire?
(a) The animal images seem to be aware of the fire.
(b) The voice in the nursery walls begins singing an old children's song.
(c) The nursery is the only room that does not turn on its sprinklers.
(d) The nursery deliberately opens its windows during the fire.

8. The line "And swallows circling with their shimmering sound" is an example of which technique?
(a) Personification.
(b) Alliteration.
(c) Metaphor.
(d) Parallelism.

9. The line "And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn," contains an example of which technique?
(a) Paradox.
(b) Oxymoron.
(c) Metaphor.
(d) Personification.

10. "The house tried to save itself" is an example of which technique?
(a) Personification.
(b) Onomatopoeia.
(c) Alliteration.
(d) Paradox.

11. What happens at ten o'clock?
(a) The robot mice go back to their burrows.
(b) The kitchen begins to make a second breakfast.
(c) The sun comes out.
(d) A stray animal wanders through the kitchen.

12. Who does the story imply is still alive in the city?
(a) The wealthy.
(b) No one.
(c) Some animals.
(d) A few scientists.

13. What is the name of the poem that the house reads after dinner?
(a) "The Children's Hour."
(b) "There Will Come Soft Rains."
(c) "Fire and Ice."
(d) "August 6."

14. What effect is the constant repetition and rhyming of the voice-clock probably meant to have?
(a) It echos the language of fairy tales and nursery rhymes.
(b) It reinforces the similarity of everything that the voice clock says.
(c) It demonstrates a positive attitude toward technology.
(d) It stresses the forgetfulness of the family.

15. When the fire travels outside and up the sides of the house, it is described as what?
(a) Treacherous.
(b) Overwhelming.
(c) Mischievous.
(d) Clever.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where are the "aluminium roaches and iron crickets"?

2. What does Bradbury compare the chemical fire-fighting foam to?

3. Why do the robot mice come out when they do?

4. From two thirty-five to four o'clock, what can readers infer that the family would ordinarily be doing?

5. In which city does the story take place?

(see the answer keys)

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