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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 method is used by the Baptist Diet meeting leader to determine how much weight Plum needs to lose?

2. In what month does the novel begin?

3. Plum says that her daily activities have kept her within what radius of her house for many years?

4. Plum says that the bariatric surgery will result in her stomach being the size of what object?

5. How many fashion magazines are published by Austen Media?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe Plum's job at Austen Media and how she comes to inhabit it.

2. Discuss the significance of Plum's clothing organization choices in the first part of the novel.

3. What is the identifying feature of Leeta's appearance?

4. How does the author portray Eulayla Baptist's husband Allen as playing a major role in her torturous weight loss plan?

5. What quality of The Calliope House does Verena say had made her choose it as the location for her feminist collective?

6. How does the motif of the italicized word "Burst!" (42) coincide with the theme of self-hatred?

7. What significant event happens in the spring of Plum's junior year of high school?

8. What does Plum mean when she says that it takes her awhile to "fully inhabit" (83) her New York life again after she finishes speaking to her mother on the phone?

9. Discuss the difference between Alicia and Plum at the start of the novel.

10. What is ironic about Plum's reaction to her encounter with Janine at the Baptist Diet meeting?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How is the topic of discovery treated within the novel and how does its treatment relate to the book's repeated allusions to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland?

Essay Topic 2

What is the novel's message concerning the link between mental and physical health?

Essay Topic 3

Analyze the author's messages regarding rebellion within her novel Dietland.

(see the answer keys)

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