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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What was the speaker's grandmother listening to in the car in the example he uses of the unxclamation point?
(a) A meditation tape.
(b) Barry Manilow.
(c) National Public Radio.
(d) An audio version of Shoah.

2. What were the speaker and his father discussing on the phone when the silence mark was used as per his example?
(a) His brother's upcoming wedding.
(b) His father's recent angioplasty.
(c) His own grades in college.
(d) His father's recent job loss.

3. What topic typically results in willed silence on the part of the speaker?
(a) His schooling.
(b) His heart.
(c) His grades.
(d) His relationships with girls.

4. Which punctuation mark does the speaker say is the "staple of familial punctuation"(1)?
(a) The insistent question mark.
(b) The silence mark.
(c) The willed silence mark.
(d) The confusion mark.

5. What symbol represents the unxclamation point?
(a) An upside down exclamation point.
(b) A sideways exclamation point.
(c) An exclamation point with a X over it.
(d) Two exclamation points, one up and one upside down.

6. What shape symbolizes the silence mark?
(a) Rhombus.
(b) Circle.
(c) Triangle.
(d) Square.

7. What does the willed silence mark signify?
(a) A signal to be quiet.
(b) Intentional silence.
(c) Loss for words.
(d) Unintentional silence.

8. What did the speaker's grandmother say to him in his example of the unxclamation point?
(a) The grandmother told him she hoped he had his old grandchildren someday.
(b) The grandmother told him she hoped he never loves anyone as much as she loves him.
(c) The grandmother told him she hoped he had a nice piano lesson.
(d) The grandmother told him she hoped someday he loves someone as much as she loves him.

9. Who is the author of "A Primer for the Punctuation of Heart Disease"?
(a) Jonathan Sears.
(b) Jonathan Swift.
(c) Jonathan Franzen.
(d) Jonathan Safran Foer.

10. Which of the speaker's family members most uses the pedal point with him?
(a) His grandmother.
(b) His father.
(c) His mother.
(d) His brother.

11. What does the unxclamation indicate?
(a) Annoyance.
(b) Shooshing someone.
(c) Disappointment.
(d) A whisper.

12. What symbol denotes the extraunxclamation point?
(a) Two upside down exclamation points.
(b) Four exclamation points.
(c) Two exclamation points.
(d) Two exclamation points, one up and one upside down.

13. What symbol represents the willed silence mark?
(a) An hand silhouette.
(b) An upside down triangle.
(c) A circle with an X in it.
(d) A blackened square.

14. During what conversation with his father does the speaker say the silence mark most often appears?
(a) When discussing life in Europe before the war.
(b) When discussing his relationship with his wife.
(c) When discussing family history of heart disease.
(d) When discussing his work.

15. What were the stranger and the narrator's father arguing over in the example he uses of the extra exclamation point?
(a) Politics.
(b) A tip.
(c) A sport's game.
(d) A parking space.

Short Answer Questions

1. What punctuation is used the double question mark as its symbol?

2. How many heart attacks does the speaker say his family has "and counting" (1)?

3. What does the pedal point signify?

4. Where was the narrator's grandmother driving him to in the example he cites of her use of the unxclamation point?

5. The narrator says he has never had sex with whom?

(see the answer keys)

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