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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What did Rick find himself wishing for at the funeral home?
(a) A way to spend more time with his mother.
(b) God.
(c) Another day with his grandmother.
(d) Heaven.

2. What work did Rick begin in junior high?
(a) Cleaning stalls.
(b) Working in Uncle Ed's store.
(c) Moving dirt and clearing land.
(d) Hauling trash.

3. How did Charles kill the assassin in Korea?
(a) He strangled him.
(b) He stabbed him.
(c) He drowned him.
(d) He shot him.

4. What happened to Mark in 1965 from which his father saved him?
(a) He fell in through an icy pond.
(b) He fell out of a tree.
(c) He was hit by a truck.
(d) He was bitten by a rattlesnake.

5. What reason did grandpa Charlie have for shooting a neighbor woman?
(a) She hit one of his children.
(b) She lied about his stealing.
(c) She told the police he made likker.
(d) She came at him with a knife.

6. Why did Margaret bury Rick's muddy sneakers?
(a) She thought John Sparks used them.
(b) She believed he may be involved in the Sparks case.
(c) She did not want to clean them.
(d) She wanted to protect him from the police.

7. What gift did Rick receive in 2nd grade that had such a large impact on him?
(a) Cowboy boots.
(b) A red wagon.
(c) A bicycle.
(d) His own bed.

8. What does Rick say about the book being called a memoir?
(a) He thinks it is wrongly named.
(b) He finds it appropriate.
(c) It makes him proud.
(d) It is too fancy a name for him.

9. What caused Margaret to lose her job as a cotton picker?
(a) Machines.
(b) She was too slow at it.
(c) Migrant workers.
(d) The government.

10. How long after quitting high school did Margaret get her GED?
(a) Twenty years.
(b) Twenty-five years.
(c) Five years.
(d) Ten years.

11. What was Rick's first course in college?
(a) Creative Writing.
(b) Journalism.
(c) Literature.
(d) Compostition.

12. What did the redbird do that makes Rick question life?
(a) It attacked its own reflection.
(b) It hurled itself into a pool.
(c) It flew into a glass door.
(d) It threw its baby from the nest.

13. What did Rick's grandmother die from?
(a) Pneumonia.
(b) Heart failure.
(c) Cancer.
(d) Kidney failure.

14. Why did Rick tell his family's story?
(a) To record his mother's sacrifices.
(b) To make himself feel better.
(c) To forgive his father.
(d) To make his brothers feel better.

15. Why did Sam become the school's janitor according to Rick?
(a) Because he was not smart enough to do anything else.
(b) Because he never wanted to be anything else.
(c) Because he never learned to read.
(d) Because they never taught him that he had other opportunities.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did Charlie tell Margaret about going back to her husband when she came home for the second time?

2. What did Sam and Rick do to their father on the night he attempted to hit Rick?

3. What happened in the country store when Rick went in to buy drinks while working one summer?

4. What does Rick regret about his grandfather?

5. What does Rick Bragg mostly write about as a reporter?

(see the answer keys)

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