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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. Which of the following do rattlesnakes have a poor sense of?

2. What was the name of Rawlings's herpetologist friend?

3. What was the name of Rawlings's cow?

4. How were Rawlings and Dess greeted by the poor white people who lived in huts near the river?

5. What did Rawlings use to kill the baby cottonmouth she found in her house?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did Rawlings know that the season was changing from spring to summer based on the activity outside her window?

2. What did Rawlings learn about her fear of snakes while she was out hunting with Ross?

3. What type of work did Samson do on Rawlings's farm?

4. Why did Rawlings keep cows on her farm?

5. How did Rawlings feel about the yachtsman she met in Sanford?

6. How did Rawlings's diet change when she was hospitalized in Cross Creek?

7. What animals did Rawlings hunt with her Aunt Wilmer, and how did the women get along during their hunting trip?

8. What problem arose when Fatty Blake held a two-county free dinner?

9. Who was Mr. Butler, and where did he die?

10. What type of snakes lived on Rawlings's property, and how did she feel about these different varieties?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Shortly after Rawlings moved to Cross Creek, she was inundated with dating proposals from men who lived there. First, give a brief timeline of Rawlings romantic life throughout the course of the memoir. Then, choose two men who courted and Rawlings and describe them. What was Rawlings's reaction to each of these men's advances? What conclusions did Rawlings make about men in general through the courting process she experienced in Cross Creek? Do you think Rawlings's reactions to the men were too strong?

Essay Topic 2

The people of Cross Creek were often plagued with poverty although Rawlings rarely states this blatantly. Choose one family from Cross Creek and describe their poverty. How did the family come to be so poor? How did they deal with their poverty? In what ways did Rawlings succeed in showing the poverty of Cross Creek without having to state it directly? How did living among the poor in Cross Creek affect Rawlings's own relationship with money?

Essay Topic 3

When the memoir first opens, Rawlings spends a lot of time discussing the land of Cross Creek and her relationship to it. First, describe the land as Rawlings did in the opening of the memoir. What were your first impressions of the land? Did Rawlings's first impression of Cross Creek remain the same for the duration of the memoir?

(see the answer keys)

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