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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 was Jeremy writing?

2. Where did Toby Langley spend some of his childhood?

3. What is the dream that has haunted June for forty years?

4. When did Sally let on that she had been abused as a child?

5. As she lay ill in bed, who do we learn June is jealous of as regards Bernard?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Jeremy state that he naturally identifies with an abandoned child like Sally?

2. Why is Jeremy in such discomfort at a point in Part One when June is speaking to him of God and religion?

3. What did Jeremy's friends, such as Toby and Joe, think of Jeremy in terms of being an orphan and living on his own mostly?

4. In what way did Sally react when she could hear her parents having one of their violent arguments?

5. Describe Jeremy's method of spending time with his friends' parents.

6. In what way do Jeremy and June disagree on June's reference to her story of the black dogs in Part One of the story?

7. How does June feel that Bernard is so different from her?

8. When Bernard's grandson, Alexander, asks his cousin, Harry, at June's burial when his grandma will be coming back, how does Harry's answer nearly sum up June's and Bernard's relationship problems?

9. How did Jeremy feel about leaving home for Oxford and being free to live on his own?

10. Why did Jeremy not ever return to Notting Hill?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

While touring the concentration camp with Jeremy, Jenny mentions the "black dogs". What significance does this hold for her? How is she relating it to Majdanek?

Essay Topic 2

One line in Part Four reads "The empty air, suffused with sunlight, seemed to contain a darkness just beyond the reach of vision". Explain this sentence as it relates to the story as a whole. Give examples, citing scenes from the book to support your explanation.

Essay Topic 3

When the story that the Maire told about the black dogs is explained, how does this affect June? How does it explain the dogs she saw and her premonition about them?

(see the answer keys)

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