View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who does Jake learn Wanda Womack lives with?

2. Where does Deputy Nesbit take Ellen to sleep the night before the trial opens?

3. Despite the urging of his friends, Jake is determined to do what?

4. Looking out a window at the black protesters, Barry Acker realizes a guilty verdict will bring a riot and what will transpire?

5. During the night of the second trial date, Stump Sisson dies, bringing the number of deaths related to Tonya's rape to how many?

Short Essay Questions

1. How are the twelve jurors and two alternates sequestered?

2. How is Jake's closing argument indicative of it being his finest hour?

3. What transpires when Jake requests a change of venue in chambers on Monday, the first day of court?

4. Just past midnight of the day Dr. Bass was questioned, what does Jake discover when driven to his home due to an emergency?

5. Why is Jake essentially lost in court the day he returned after being shot at?

6. Beyond the cost of a human life and loss for loved ones and associates, what are some of the significant ramifications of Tim Nunley's death?

7. What does Jake when the National Guard arrive?

8. What does the reader learn was key to the jury being swayed to finding an innocent by reason of insanity verdict?

9. Why is everyone relieved when Jake declines to question Murphy, the janitor, in cross-examination?

10. What transpires when Clyde Acker walks for a cola at the Temple Inn?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Compare the way Ozzie Walls performed his duties responsible for the Ford County Sheriff's Department with the manner in which the colonel in charge of the National Guard unit executed his. Consider the number of members and equipment available to each. Address options likely in security of housing and transporting only 14 jury members and the Hailey defense team. Also address lapses in security both within the courthouse and the area outside. What measures should have been taken considering the verdict might have been guilty? Why were potential targets repeatedly exposed? What were the measures taken by Ozzie Walls prior to arrival of National Guard? Who did Barry Acker rely on more?

Essay Topic 2

The story is staged around a murder trial where a number of the key characters are attorneys. The author, John Grisham, is himself an attorney. How does he use his legal expertise in writing "A Time to Kill"? How is it reflected in the depiction of legal maneuvering, selection of the jury, legal and illegal tactics, use of associates for research in preparing for court, courtroom styles, actions in the judge's chambers, and other judicial aspects?

Essay Topic 3

John Grisham presents a dark story. A 10-year-old girl is beaten, urinated on, and raped by two drunk, Mississippi rednecks. She endures unreal, subsequent trauma afterward. Her father kills the perpetrators. He is placed on trial for their murders and may be killed. A "snitch" in the KKK warns local law enforcement of potential attacks, and is himself killed in retribution. A KKK leader is killed with a Molotov cocktail. Others die in Grisham's novel, "A Time to Kill." Explain what the author is referring to by his title.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,200 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample