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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 is Katz planning to do in Franklin?
(a) Go shopping
(b) Go to the movies
(c) Find a woman
(d) Idle in town for several days

2. What is the only accommodation available at the campground?
(a) A heated sleeping platform
(b) A 10-person tent
(c) A full-to-capacity bunkhouse
(d) Dilapidated cottages and trailers without heat

3. The north point of the Appalachian Trail begins in which state?
(a) Maine
(b) Georgia
(c) Virginia
(d) Pennsylvania

4. What does Mary Ellen tell another hiker at Plumorchard Gap Shelter about Katz and Bryson?
(a) She is grateful for all they did for her.
(b) They are wimps.
(c) She is afraid on the trail without them.
(d) They helped her out alot.

5. What is the true creature of the Smokies?
(a) The raccoon
(b) The salamander
(c) The possum
(d) The black bear

Short Answer Questions

1. What types of trees grew in the forest of the Appalachian Trail in 1948?

2. When were over half of all the offices and malls in America today built?

3. What is the name of the amusement park Dolly Parton built in Gatlinburg?

4. What does Bryson consider a miracle about the Appalachian Trail?

5. What is it about the airline person that prompts Bryson to question the man's intelligence?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe Stephen Katz, Bryson's hiking partner.

2. Explain how a hiker manages to get on the Appalachian Trail at Amicola Falls State Park when it is seven miles from the nearest highway.

3. Why does Bryson describe his first day on the trail as hell?

4. Summarize the realization that Bryson and Katz come to as they look at a map of the Appalachian Trail in Gatlinburg.

5. Why are Bryson and Katz looking forward to hiking the eight miles to Waynesboro?

6. As Bryson and Katz wait for a cabdriver, what do they suddenly decide about their destination?

7. What are the benefits Bill Bryson believes he will get from hiking the Appalachian Trail?

8. Summarize the weather report the man at the airport check-in gives to Bryson and Katz as they prepare to leave for the Appalachian Trail.

9. Summarize the accomplishments of Earl V. Shaffer during the summer of 1948.

10. Describe the contrast between the weather in the south with the weather a hundred miles further north in Virginia.

(see the answer keys)

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