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

Short Answer Questions

1. Why does the teacher seat Tom with the girls?

2. What is the object of the game?

3. What has Tom been eating that he wasn't supposed to eat?

4. Why does Tom decide to run away?

5. What wakes Tom the next morning?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe what Tom hears while he waits for Huck.

2. How does Tom find his lost marble?

3. Describe some of the ways Tom and Huck discuss to remove warts.

4. What do Tom and Huck do with their pact after they sign it?

5. What do the villagers want to do to Injun Joe?

6. Describe the graveyard.

7. What does Tom tutor Becky in when they meet surreptitiously during lunch?

8. How does Tom get shooed away from Jeff Thatcher's house?

9. What is Tom and Joe's plan to run away?

10. What is Aunt Polly's reaction to Tom's disappearance?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss religion in the novel.

1) Is Tom religious? Discuss his reactions to Sunday school, his behavior in church, his beliefs in superstition, and his beliefs about the afterlife.

2) What role does religion play in Tom's family? What purposes does the Sunday-morning family ritual serve?

3) Do the community's religious leaders influence thought in the community? How?

Essay Topic 2

Tom Sawyer is set in a small town in middle-America in the mid-1800s. Discuss the importance of the setting of Tom Sawyer.

1) How are the qualities of Tom's childhood determined by the setting?

2) What type of independence does the setting allow Tom? What types of constraints does the setting put on Tom?

3) How might Tom's childhood be different in a different location or time?

Essay Topic 3

As the author says, the story of Tom Sawyer is the story of a boy, and at the end of the story, he is on his way to manhood. Describe how The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a coming of age story. What are the qualities of boyhood in Tom during the story? What are the qualities that make a person adult in the story? What steps does Tom take toward adulthood? How much further does Tom have to go toward adulthood at the end of the novel?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 800 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample