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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 Robby say he felt on the night of the botched robbery?

2. Who is shooting at Robby?

3. What does Robby say he would do with $1,000 if he got it?

4. What does John say happens in Pittsburgh in summer?

5. How much did Robby spend on heroin?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did Robby and his crew pull off the robbery?

2. Describe Robby's graduation.

3. How does Robby characterize his career in fencing operations?

4. How did Robby come to believe that Stavros had a gun?

5. What did Robby and Michael Dukes and Cecil Rice do sloppily while they were getting away?

6. How does John describe Robby's arrest after the drug deal in Detroit?

7. How does Robby say the prison environment changes after his appeals are all turned down?

8. How did the botched job feel wrong from the start, according to Robby?

9. Who was Red Murphy?

10. Why did Robby and his crew turn from drugs to crime?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

According to John Wideman, Robby is locked up like an animal. What other metaphors are common to "Brothers and Keepers", and what does the web of metaphorical associations tell us about Wideman and his ideas about Robby's incarceration? Does he treat the idea playfully? Is he deadly serious about it? Does he try to magnify the significance of it through metaphor? Does he try to diminish it or domesticate it?

Essay Topic 2

What is missing from this book? What should have been covered or presented that was not? What is the effect of this absence? Describe an element that ought to have been covered, and explain why it would have made the book stronger.

Essay Topic 3

How has American culture changed since Wideman wrote his book? Research the incarceration of blacks and describe what has changed, if anything, in the system Wideman describes.

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