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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. 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 distant.
(d) He had become disagreeable.

2. What symbol represents "the end of a unique familial phrase" (5)?
(a) The spiral.
(b) The high five.
(c) The surprised face emoji.
(d) The snowflake.

3. What do the should have brackets denote?
(a) Words you know you were expected to say but could not.
(b) Words that were not spoken but should have been.
(c) When you realize what you should have said after the fact.
(d) Words someone thinks you should have said but did not.

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

5. What were some things the speaker's father's doctor advised him against doing due to the emotional stress these things caused him?
(a) Running or arguing with his wife.
(b) Cooking dinner or cleaning the house.
(c) Driving during rush hour or answering the phone.
(d) Watching Orioles games or thinking of the current administration.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. The speaker uses a conversation between himself and which relative as an example of the low point?

3. What does the severed web mean, approximately?

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

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

5. What is one example the speaker gives of the use of a reversible colon?

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

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

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

9. What are the final words that remain unspoken, as shown by the use of the should-have brackets, between father and son in the final conversation of the story?

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

(see the answer keys)

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