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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 type of farm was Patsy taken to when her mother collected her from Rawlings?

2. Which of the following adjectives best described Cross Creek?

3. What was the name of Moe's daughter that became ill?

4. What animal did Mr. Higgenbottom sell for a living?

5. What did the Townsends serve for dinner at their party?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why did Rawlings return Georgia to her father?

2. What experience with outhouses did Rawlings have when she was growing up?

3. Why did Mr. Swilley believe that Rawlings was in love with him, and why did Rawlings let him go from her service?

4. What type of relationship did Rawlings have with the Mickens family while they were employed by her?

5. What did Rawlings believe Martha would have become in life had she been born white?

6. What type of relationship did Rawlings have with Black Aunt Martha Mickens?

7. How did Mr. Marsh Turner die?

8. What type of relationship did Rawlings notice between young and old magnolia trees while she was living in Cross Creek?

9. What parts of Cross Creek added to its beauty, as Rawlings recollected it in the opening chapter of the memoir?

10. How did Rawlings come to shoot a pig in her garden?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

This memoir takes the reader through all four seasons in Cross Creek. Describe each of the four seasons on Rawlings's farm in Cross Creek. What work does Rawlings do on the farm during these seasons? Why do you think Rawlings chose to set up her memoir in the cycle of seasons? How does the cycle of seasons reflect or mirror Rawlings's emotions in the novel? How does the setup reflect Rawlings's views on time and life in general? Do you think this was an effective setup for the memoir?

Essay Topic 2

How did Widow Slater's religious beliefs affect her daily life and the life of her children? How did Rawlings treat the Widow Slater and her family? How did Rawlings's treatment of the family compare to the way she represented the family in the text? What can the reader learn about Rawlings's own religious beliefs through witnessing her reaction to Widow Slater's?

Essay Topic 3

Throughout the memoir, Rawlings contemplates what it means to be rich and what it means to be poor, even going so far as to say the poor are "a cleaned, naked version of the rich." What do you think Rawlings meant by this statement? To whom was she referring when she made it? Then, choose one rich person and one poor person that lived in Cross Creek. Do you think this statement reflects the relationship between these two people? Finally, describe Rawlings's view on the rich and poor at the end of the memoir. Had her views on these two classes of people changed through her experiences at Cross Creek?

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