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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. Where is Ruby planning to go to university?

2. For what do Bunty and Ruby spend several days shopping?

3. Who saw Alice Barker leave with Jean-Paul Armand?

4. What religion did Alice convert to during World War I after a vision?

5. How does Pearl die?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did Alice and Jean-Paul Armand get stuck in France longer than originally planned?

2. What does Ruby do for a living?

3. Why does Tom laugh when his hand is blown off?

4. How do Kathleen and Ruby spend the summer after finishing high school?

5. Why did the crew of D for Dog have a bad feeling about their final flight?

6. What does Bunty come into the shop with at the beginning of Chapter Ten?

7. How does Ruby find her mother when she returns to York in 1992?

8. What do Ruby and Patricia find at the old Shop?

9. What prompts Ruby's decision to leave Gian-Carlo?

10. What is the basic tenet of Ruby's Lost Property Cupboard theory of the afterlife?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What are the similarities among the four generations o the women of Ruby's family? How are they portrayed?

Essay Topic 2

Several times throughout the novel, Ruby says, "I am a precious jewel. I am a drop of blood. I am Ruby Lennox." What is the significance of these sentences, and why are they repeated throughout the book?

Essay Topic 3

Kate Atkinson has said that this novel is about cupboards. How is that so?

(see the answer keys)

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