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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 is Bianca drawn to on the playground on her first date with her husband?

2. What does a loose woman see in the mirror in the story "Difficult Women"?

3. How does a loose woman sit at the bar in the story "Difficult Women"?

4. Where does Savvie's sister, Carolina, want Savvie to go with her to find her estranged husband?

5. What evidence do the police find of Savvie's and Carolina's abduction that is particularly difficult for the sisters to confront?

Short Essay Questions

1. In the story "Difficult Women," what is it about death that makes girls more interesting?

2. Why is William Livingston briefly appalled when he finds out that Sarah is mixed-race in "La Negra Blanca"?

3. Why does Carolina tell Savvie she decided to marry Darryl?

4. What does Kate's elderly landlady tell her in the story "North Country" when she meets her for the first time?

5. Why does Magnus get angry with Kate and ignore her calls for weeks?

6. What shocking realization does the narrator come to at the end of "The Mark of Cain"?

7. What does Sal do to Caridad in the story "Florida" that upsets and offends Caridad?

8. What is the background of the narrator's boyfriend, Gus, bringing her plastic body parts in the story "Baby Arm"?

9. Why is the ceiling at Bianca's office moldy and rotted in "Water, All Its Weight"?

10. Why does Sarah let everyone assume she is white in the story "La Negra Blanca"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay analyzing how Gay uses specific, memorable details and imagery in the story "Noble Things" to convey the character Parker Coles Johnson VI's deep sense of loss and foreboding in the newly seceded South.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay analyzing the metaphors Gay uses in the story "The Sacrifice of Darkness" to explain the desperation and subjugation of the working classes. Cite specific references from the text in your answer.

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay analyzing why the narrator has such difficulty fully trusting her lover in the story "Strange Gods." Why do you think the narrator finally comes around to accepting her partner's marriage proposal, on her partner's fifth attempt, at the end of the story?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 775 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample