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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How did everyone treat Margaret at the acceptance dinner for Rick's award?
(a) Mostly, they stayed away.
(b) With kid gloves.
(c) They paid her homage for the son that she raised.
(d) They were loud and overwhelming.

2. How old was Rick when he married?
(a) In his late twenties.
(b) In his early thirties.
(c) In his mid-twenties.
(d) In his early twenties.

3. What did Rick's wife tell him that scared him out of the marriage?
(a) She did not want him traveling for his stories.
(b) She thought she was pregnant.
(c) He only cared about his work.
(d) He worked too late.

4. When did Rick come to realize that Susan was guilty of killing her own children?
(a) When a lead from a girl did not pan out.
(b) Not until the car was found.
(c) When a TV reporter asked why someone would take the car with kids in it.
(d) Margaret told him that she would have died for her children.

5. What happened to Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1990?
(a) He was assassinated.
(b) He lost the election by poplular vote.
(c) He was elected for the second time.
(d) He went into exile.

6. What kind of people did Rick write about from Immokalee, Florida?
(a) Criminals.
(b) Crew bosses.
(c) Poor migrant workers who drank too much.
(d) The homeless.

7. What did the woman tell Rick who he met at a seminar at the end of the book?
(a) That one must forget the past and move on.
(b) That material items cannot fulfill dreams.
(c) That she should not put on hold the nice things in life.
(d) That from him she learned not to be ashamed of where she came from.

8. Why did momma move out of her new house?
(a) Sam and Mark had a fight on the front lawn.
(b) She was afraid there by herself.
(c) She missed the old house too much.
(d) The dog died at the new house.

9. How did Rick try to buy his way into heaven?
(a) By buying his ex-wife a baby carriage.
(b) By buying his momma a pair of dentures.
(c) By buying his girlfriend a car.
(d) By buying his brother a business.

10. What story brought Rick back home in 1994?
(a) A church that was hit by a tornado.
(b) A woman who killed her children.
(c) A hurricane that tore down a school.
(d) A gunman who opened fire at a church.

11. To what does the title "Monsters" refer?
(a) Poverty.
(b) Insensitive journalists.
(c) The Oklahoma city bombers.
(d) Burning houses.

12. In writing about sports, what did Rick come to realize were the only types of stories that he wanted to write?
(a) Football.
(b) Car racing.
(c) The ones in which people struggle.
(d) Death.

13. What was Rick's first story about as a news reporter for the Anniston Star?
(a) Gang members who were shot to death.
(b) Deer hunters who were killing each other by accident.
(c) Football players who suffered from concussions.
(d) Race car drivers killed on the track.

14. How long had momma lived in the little house?
(a) Twenty years.
(b) Forty years.
(c) Thirty years.
(d) Ten years.

15. What was momma most taken by in the new house?
(a) The thermostat.
(b) The dishwasher.
(c) The hot running water.
(d) The doorbell.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where did Rick travel to the first time he went out of the country to write a story?

2. When Rick went home in 1988, how long had it been since he spent the holidays there?

3. How did Margaret react to her trip to New York City?

4. How big was the property of momma's new house?

5. What did Kovach tell Rick to answer the next time someone asks him where he learned how to write?

(see the answer keys)

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