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

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?
(a) He was graduating college.
(b) He was moving abroad.
(c) He was having heart surgery.
(d) He was getting married.

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

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

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

Short Answer Questions

1. In the final conversation in the story, what is Jonathan's response to his father's {I love you}?

2. What are some things the speaker might be doing when he imagines his family's versions of the should-haves?

3. What does the original use of a lowpoint then to create?

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

5. What does the narrator's father attribute to his successful marriage?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What are the should-have brackets?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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