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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. How does Freddie Parr's father Jack react to the ruling by the court that Freddie's death was an accident?

2. Tom confronts Price about his frequent interruptions during class. What question does Price's reluctance about history boil down to?

3. On the day that Freddie Parr was found dead in the river, Mary confesses what to Tom?

4. What does Tom dream that he considers telling the headmaster about?

5. How did Tom's parents meet?

Short Essay Questions

1. In chapter 11, Tom Crick describes the inquest into Freddie Parr's death. What does the judge determine is the official cause of death, and how does he arrive at his conclusion?

2. Chapter 51 is titled "About Phlegm." What is the significance of phlegm for the novel?

3. In chapter 4, what is the reasoning the headmaster Lewis Scott gives Tom Crick for laying Tom off and merging history with General Studies?

4. In chapter 46, Tom opens his mother's chest in the attic and finds a few items. What are they and what is their significance?

5. What is the surprise Tom Crick encounters when he stands up to speak at the end of chapter 48?

6. Chapter 49 is one more chapter Tom Crick spends lamenting what happens when idealists begin revolutions and lose sight of their ideals. What is that example?

7. In chapter 25, Tom Crick gauges the reaction of his students at his racy revelations. What does he observe about rebellion in this context?

8. In chapter 28, Tom explains why he turned to history and stories as passionately as he did. Why is that?

9. As he watches Dick ride off on his motorbike at the end of chapter 46, Tom states that Dick rides as if he has the legacy of the Atkinsons on his back. How so?

10. In chapter 50, Harry Crick is bed-ridden in Tom's and Mary's first house in Gildsey. What made him ill?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Sexual relationships and their consequences are central to Graham Swift's novel Waterland. Choose one of those relationships between the characters and their sexuality. Explore why the characters express their sexuality as they do. Explain the consequences these choices have for each of them and for their partners. Analyze in how far their sexual development is tied to external factors--such as social pressure--over which they have no control, and in how far it is their own choices that lead to the consequences that they have to face.

Essay Topic 2

Graham Swift's novel Waterland is set in the fictional town on Gildsey and along a fictional river, the River Leem. The Fenlands, the River Ouse, the town of Ely, and many other details are, however, real. In a sense, that fact is symbolic for how the novel treats the relationship between history and story. Using specifics and quotes from the novel, explore the relationship between fact and fiction in the novel. Make sure to include Tom Crick's opinions about history in your discussion.

Essay Topic 3

Carefully consider the character of Sarah Atkinson from Graham Swift's novel Waterland. Using specific examples from the novel, trace how she captures the imagination of her two sons, of the people of the town of Gildsey, and of her descendants. Finally, analyze what Sarah's life might symbolize in Tom Crick's narrative about the Fens and its people.

(see the answer keys)

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