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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. What does Bert die of?

2. In the novel's opening paragraph, Nellie has taken her three children and left, presumably for where?

3. Frank's father, Bert, dies when?

4. At the tea-room Kuriatin has invited Frank to, waiters career about wheeling large teapots about like what?

5. What was Frank's father's trade?

Short Essay Questions

1. What are some of the proposals the new cost accountant, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Bernov, offers on his first day of work at Reid Press?

2. Why is it Mrs. Kuriatin readily agrees to have Dolly and Ben come after school to Mitya's party?

3. What does the reader learn of Frank's background in the opening chapter?

4. What takes place at four in the afternoon, the very first day Bernov arrives for work?

5. What are some examples of Nellie Cooper's lack of enthusiasm for the things she does?

6. What does Frank do with the man he finds has broken into his business?

7. What are the various members of the Reid household staff doing upon Frank's arrival home after collecting his children at the station master's home?

8. When Frank tells Lisa he is sorry she never managed to study, what transpires next?

9. What noticeable change is there in Nellie's attitude once she arrives in Moscow?

10. At supper on the day Charlie returns to England, what is Lisa's response, when prodded by Frank, to Ben's inquiry regarding how it is better for women now than it was ten years ago?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Critical in Chapter 12 are the feelings Frank has toward Lisa. How does Penelope Fitzgerald accomplish revealing the state Frank finds himself in? What is the capability Frank has in recognizing and dealing with his instinctive emotions?

Essay Topic 2

During the course of the conversation Frank has with Dolly over her writing a letter to her mother, what does the reader learn that she thinks of Nellie? How does Dolly view Nellie's decision to get married and have children? What sort of way is that for a ten-year-old child to think? Does it seem unusual for Dolly?

Essay Topic 3

Until Chapter 19, the reader is not made aware of the amount of pleasure the warmth of his family's life brings to Frank. How does the author achieve this? How much satisfaction does physical contact provide to Frank? How is it brought out how attune Frank is?

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