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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What rings for the first time on Norday, brought by the workmen?
(a) Telephone.
(b) Fire Alarms.
(c) Church bells.
(d) Bell choirs.

2. What is Thorfinn given in the prison camp to help him write?
(a) English teacher.
(b) Typewriter.
(c) Secretary.
(d) German dictionary.

3. What are the villagers celebrating in the summer of 1937?
(a) Emancipation of Scotland from Ireland.
(b) End of World War II.
(c) Coronation of King George and Queen Elizabeth.
(d) Norday's independence from Orkney.

4. Why is the present laird so poor?
(a) Norday is poor.
(b) He has chosen a life of poverty and contemplation.
(c) His grandfather had to sell all his land.
(d) He spent his money on women and wine.

5. Who burns down the original Hall?
(a) The Jacobian army.
(b) King George II's sailors.
(c) The laird on a drunken ramble.
(d) Bonnie Prince Charles.

6. Where do the young Norday men hide from the military men and factor?
(a) Boats off shore.
(b) Laird's Hall.
(c) Caves.
(d) Cliffs of Dover.

7. Where does Thorfinn see peat smoke rising from on what he thinks is a deserted Norday?
(a) Smylder.
(b) Ingle.
(c) Glebe.
(d) Swinhurst.

8. Who is Ragna courting in chapter 6?
(a) Ransom Terry.
(b) Stalwart Inqvest.
(c) Andrew Rosey.
(d) Selkie Downs.

9. What three chocolate bars are mentioned in chapter 6's description of the festival celebration?
(a) Milk, Dark and Semi-Sweet.
(b) Cadbury, Fry and Rowntree.
(c) Hershey, Ghiradelhi and Snickers.
(d) LIndt, Swiss and Bardor.

10. What is this "crudded milk, fantastical puff-paste" that George Mackay Brown speaks of in chapter 6?
(a) No purpose in life.
(b) Insubstantial pastry.
(c) Angels who fall from heights.
(d) Our body.

11. What is the Kitty Fea?
(a) Lobster boat.
(b) Harbor store.
(c) Warship.
(d) Ale house.

12. Who is Thomas Vass?
(a) Laird's uncle.
(b) Laird's factor, who manages his property and business.
(c) Village smithy.
(d) Sophie's intended groom.

13. How does the laird describe Norday Island to his factor in chapter 5?
(a) "Sweet sessions of Syrian thought."
(b) "The lark at dawn arising."
(c) "A breath of air past fog."
(d) "This precious stone set in a silver sea."

14. What two Norday inhabitants seem untouched by the chaos and destruction of the aerodrome workers?
(a) Billie Holm and James MacTavish.
(b) Jacob and Janet Olafson.
(c) Thorfinn and Matthew Ragnarson.
(d) Winnie Swona and her grandmother up at Swinhurst.

15. Who does Jacob Olafson leave his boat Scallop to?
(a) Thorfinn Ragnarson.
(b) Janet Olafson.
(c) Howie Ayre.
(d) Geordie Wylie.

Short Answer Questions

1. What awkward announcement does Matthew Ragnarson make to his children in chapter 6?

2. What is a croft?

3. Where has the Reverend Hector Drummond arrived at Norday from?

4. According to author Brown, what does the real self seek?

5. In the actual history what happens to Prince Charles Edward after he escapes?

(see the answer keys)

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