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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. 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 brother told him he had been having a heart attack for six years.
(c) When his mother told him it pained her to think of him alone.
(d) When his grandmother told him she hopes he never loves anyone as much as she loves him.

2. What is the speaker's response to "Jonathan" when followed by a pedal point in the example he uses?
(a) Say no more.
(b) Leave me alone.
(c) I know.
(d) Be quiet.

3. What phrase can the low point replace?
(a) This is as good as it gets.
(b) It couldn't possible be worse.
(c) Nowhere to go but up.
(d) What goes up must come down.

4. What does the narrator's father attribute to his successful marriage?
(a) Being a little deaf sometimes.
(b) Being a yes man.
(c) Giving each other room to grow.
(d) Open communication.

5. In the final conversation in the story, what is Jonathan's response to his father's {I love you}?
(a) {Let me be}.
(b) {I'm crying into the phone}.
(c) {Help}.
(d) {I love you too, so much}.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why does the speaker think he has become a yes man?

2. What were some things the speaker's father's doctor advised him against doing due to the emotional stress these things caused him?

3. What does the speaker say low points tend to do in his communication with family?

4. What example does the speaker use of the should have brackets when his father asks him if he hears static in the phone?

5. What did the speaker's brother learn after he ended up in intensive care several weeks ago?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the conversation the speaker relays between mother and father to show use of the corroboration mark.

2. What is something the speaker and his brother do not discuss? How do you know?

3. What does the speaker's father confess to him about his marriage after his 19th heart attack?

4. What are low points? What conversation between the speaker and his mother does he use to exemplify their use?

5. What did the speaker's brother learn after first experiencing chest pains and ultimately ending up in intensive care?

6. What does the speaker realize about himself after his father discusses how his brother was already a yes man?

7. What does the severed web symbolize? What does the speaker call this?

8. Describe the snowflake and when it might be used.

9. Describe the phone call between the speaker and his brother after he ended up in intensive care.

10. Why did the speaker's father's doctor advise against pulling weeds? What other things did he advice against?

(see the answer keys)

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