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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How many heart attacks had the speaker's father suffered when he told his son the secret to his successful marriage?
(a) 4.
(b) 19.
(c) 1.
(d) 22.

2. What example does the speaker use as a familial conversation in which one party understands the words but not the meaning?
(a) When his father told him his brother had become a yes man.
(b) When his grandmother told him she hopes he never loves anyone as much as she loves him.
(c) When his mother told him it pained her to think of him alone.
(d) When his brother told him he had been having a heart attack for six years.

3. What sentence is NOT used as an example of when the reversible colon is appropriate?
(a) Sex::yes.
(b) I've never felt loved by anyone outside of my family::my persistent depression.
(c) My eyes water when I speak about my family::I don't like to speak about my family.
(d) I want a better life::my family.

4. Which of his family members does the speaker say he loved more than he loved himself?
(a) His brother.
(b) His mother.
(c) His grandmother.
(d) His father.

5. What does the speaker say low points tend to do in his communication with family?
(a) Make things worse.
(b) Make things better.
(c) Confuse the situation.
(d) Not change anything.

6. How may fights have the speaker's parent had in all of their marriage?
(a) Hundreds.
(b) Dozens.
(c) 1.
(d) 10.

7. What did the speaker call his brother and say after finding out he was in intensive care?
(a) He should not worry.
(b) He needs to take care of himself.
(c) He should watch his diet.
(d) He must exercise more.

8. While weeding, what did the speaker's father say had happened to his brother?
(a) He had become very affectionate.
(b) He had become a yes man.
(c) He had become disagreeable.
(d) He had become distant.

9. How early on in the marriage did the speaker's parents have their first fight?
(a) On their first anniversary.
(b) The first day.
(c) During the first week.
(d) After their first year.

10. What is the purpose of the backup?
(a) It is used to restart a conversation when you were too distracted to listen.
(b) It is used to repeat what you said so the person to whom you are speaking can understand.
(c) It is used to erase what you said and rephrase.
(d) It is used to replay a sentence and discover what might have been missed.

11. What recurring dreams did the speaker's father have?
(a) Pulling weeds from his chest.
(b) Hiding from Nazis.
(c) Running for president.
(d) Playing on the Orioles.

12. What does the speaker call the severed web symbol?
(a) An Inadequately Worded Idiom.
(b) A Barely Tolerable Subsitute.
(c) A Scarcely Salvageable Sentence.
(d) A Hardly Acceptable Replacement.

13. What symbol represents the "backup"?
(a) A left arrow.
(b) A right arrow.
(c) An upside down arrow.
(d) An upright arrow.

14. Why does the speaker think he has become a yes man?
(a) He likes to keep busy.
(b) He is afraid of dying.
(c) He likes to make people happy.
(d) He has low self-esteem.

15. What does the speaker acknowledge about the should-have brackets in the final paragraph of the story?
(a) They rarely exist in conversations between himself and his brother.
(b) Each family member's sense of the should-haves is different.
(c) They are used more often between him and his father.
(d) They are used less frequently among his family members lately.

Short Answer Questions

1. What were the speaker and his father recently doing, despite his father's doctor telling him not to?

2. What life changing event was going to happen to the speaker's brother a few weeks after the speaker and his father were weeding?

3. What is the subject of the discussion the speaker uses to exemplify use of the low point?

4. Which member of the speaker's family do you attribute this sentence to: "I didn't die in the Holocaust, but all of my siblings did, so where does that leave me" (5)?

5. When is the reversible colon used?

(see the answer keys)

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