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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. Who is Stephanie's father's mistress?

2. Where does Hanna work?

3. Who is Natasha's husband in "Break All the Way Down"?

4. What secret of the stone thrower's does the stone thrower's glass wife discover?

5. Where does Stephanie's father take her on Saturday mornings in the story "In the Event of my Father's Death"?

Short Essay Questions

1. What unique ability do Hanna and Anna share?

2. What does Teresa tell Stephanie that surprises her at the end of the story "In the Event of My Father's Death"?

3. Why does the narrator's mother in the story "A Pat" tell her to befriend the saddest and most desperate people?

4. Why did Father Michael Patrick Minty not really know his father in the story" Bad Priest"?

5. What does Father Michael realize at the end of "Bad Priest" about his mother's knowledge of his private life?

6. What does the reader learn about the stone thrower through the eyes of his glass wife at the end of the story?

7. How does Hanna react when she sees her mother for the first time in 16 years?

8. What Bible story did Nora Minty, Father Michael's mother, tell to Father Michael many times?

9. What secret of her own does the narrator keep from her unfaithful husband David in "Bone Density"?

10. Why does Hanna drive to the college town nearby and invite sexual encounters with college-aged boys in secret?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In several of the stories in Difficult Women, Gay briefly references a main character's relationship with parents, but in two stories she focuses on parent-child relationships more fully - "In the Event of My Father's Death" and "A Pat." Write an essay comparing and contrasting how Gay portrays the relationships between her narrators and their parents in each of these stories, citing specific references from each story to support your answer.

Essay Topic 2

In the story "Baby Arm," how is the fact that the narrator deliberately maintains an emotional detachment from her boyfriend, Gus, related to her attraction to the fight club that she organizes with Tate? Write an essay explaining your answer, citing specific references to the text.

Essay Topic 3

Gay features twins in several of the stories in Difficult Women, including "The Mark of Cain," "How," and "I am a Knife." Write an essay comparing and contrasting the different themes Gay develops around her characters who are twins throughout different stories in the book.

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