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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 or who is Fabre?

2. What did Theodore and Gerald snack on after their day of exploration in Chapter Four?

3. What part of the fish Taki caught was poisonous?

4. The day before his birthday, what did Gerald notice about his family?

5. Who was Kokino?

Short Essay Questions

1. What did mother have Costas construct in the yard? How did she explain the construction to Gerald? What was Gerald's mother really having built and why?

2. Who did Mother hire to be Gerald's tutor? How did the two initially get along? What did his tutor do that changed Gerald's perspective on learning?

3. What was the "Bootle-bumtrinket?" How did Gerald get it and what did he do with it?

4. Who did Margo and Gerald discover lived on Mouse Island? How did they first discover this person? How did they eventually appease this inhabitant's ire?

5. What did the family do on Sven's last day at their villa? Who came to visit that day? What did Sven do upon meeting this guest? How does Mother describe Sven as gets into the cab to leave? Why did Larry think her comment was ironic?

6. What did Larry offer to teach Gerald about caring for Sally? What important piece of information did Larry not know that caused him trouble? What happened?

7. What did Gerald do upon catching a seahorse while fishing with Kokino? Where did he find them? How many seahorses did he find in all, and what did he do with them?

8. How did Gerald's family react to the seahorses? What unusual thing did Theodore teach Gerald about seahorses?

9. What did Gerald and Theo discover on their excursion to the lake? Why was this discovery exciting for Gerald?

10. Who was Kokino? What does Kokino mean in Greek? What did Kokino and Gerald do together?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Gerald Durrell ended his memoir with the short paragraph "Lulled by the wine and the throbbing heart of the boat's engine, lulled by the warm night and the singing, I fell asleep while the boat carried us back across the warm, smooth waters to our island and the brilliant days that were not to be." Discuss this sentence, its relevance to the memoir as a whole, and the "days ahead" for the family.

Essay Topic 2

The writer uses dialogue to enhance the characters and often to inject humor into a situation. What are three examples of memorable dialogue in the memoir? Why are they memorable, and why are they important to the memoir?

Essay Topic 3

This memoir covers a period of time in Durrell's life. The reader is given clues as to how old the characters are, the years in which they are on Corfu, and what part of the twentieth century the memoir takes place. Write in your own words a short biography of the Durrell family and include as much as you know about the time(s) in the memoir.

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This section contains 1,234 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample