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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 Laura Dobrinksy call Russ in relation to his ministering?

2. Russ saw Ambrose as understanding people on what level?

3. What is Russ’s wife’s name?

4. What does Marion encourage Bradley to write when they are together?

5. Clem’s girlfriend Sharon is what level grade student at college?

Short Essay Questions

1. What happens when Marion tells her therapist, Sophie, about the abortion that Marion had tried to have when she was younger?

2. Why does Marion still feel guilty for her father’s suicide?

3. What was Frances Cottrell’s marriage like to her husband before he died?

4. Why does Russ feel justified to begin an affair with the widow Frances Cottrell?

5. Why does Marion believe that her “acting had mesmerized Bradley Grant,” and does this make her more like her actress sister Shirley?

6. What effect does the author present by mentioning Russ’s “humiliation” in the early pages of the book, but not explaining what happened for several hundred pages into the reading?

7. Why does Russ refuse to talk to Ambrose after Russ’s humiliation event?

8. Why does Marion call Shirley’s acting insignificant, by referring to her as a “pretty face who memorized lines”?

9. Why is Russ upset that Frances calls Ambrose a “genius” for his work with the church teen group Crossroads?

10. Why does Marion still feel obsessed with Bradley 30 years after their love affair?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay regarding how Marion changed and developed after her weekly psychiatrist sessions with Sophie. In flashbacks, what did Marion learn about herself by talking to a psychiatrist every week about her past life?

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay that states the reasons why Becky felt that she needed to leave her family and go to Europe on the money inheritance that she received from her dearly departed Aunt Shirley. How did her family feel about her wanting to go to Europe for the summer?

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay that recalls all of the reasons that Perry gives to show that he is doomed, and that his life has little hope of getting better.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 978 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample