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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 class does Emmy take?

2. From what city is Mouse?

3. What is the Abingdon mascot?

4. In what mine does Bettina Cook’s family hold stock?

5. At what kind of gas station do Demon and company stop on the way to Richmond?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Betsy negotiate not having a car?

2. Why does the Winfield family not make much of Christmas?

3. Why does Demon look forward to his Backgrounds project?

4. What is Dori’s father’s reported cause of death?

5. What does Annie tell Demon every teacher hopes to see?

6. Why does Demon do cocaine at Mouse’s?

7. What are the differences between grandfathers’ and grandmothers’ stories of working in coal?

8. Why does Dick spend his childhood in an institution?

9. Why does Armstrong substitute in sixth grade?

10. Why does June break up with Kent?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The protagonist remarks that “A kid is a terrible thing to be, in charge of nothing. If you get past that and grown, it’s easiest to forget about the misery and pretend you knew all along what you were doing. Assuming you’ve ended up someplace you’re proud to be. And if not, easier to forget the whole thing, period” (7). Does the novel support or belie the remarks? What in the novel shows as much, and how does it do so?

Essay Topic 2

Explicate the significance of the name of any one character in the text.

Essay Topic 3

A lack of formal sectional division in the novel obliges a fairly arbitrary breakdown of the text for purposes of study and discussion. On what grounds might the current divisions be in place? Why and how are they appropriate to the text?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 519 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample