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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is one place that Janisse's parents do NOT list as a place where one of their children was found?
(a) On a bed of moss in the treehouse.
(b) Beside a huckleberry bush.
(c) Under a grapevine.
(d) Inside a big cabbage in the garden.

2. What prompted Frank to buy out his father Charlie's share of the salvage business?
(a) Charlie cares only about living paycheck to paycheck, but Frank wants to do more than just survive.
(b) Charlie wants to move to Florida to pick oranges for a living.
(c) Frank fights too often with Charlie, making the workplace too tense.
(d) Frank discovers that Charlie has been siphoning money from the business into his own pockets.

3. When Charlie somehow got out of the mental institution to which Clyo had him committed, how did she persuade him to leave the family home again?
(a) By giving him all the money she had.
(b) By telling him that he could live in the old van down by the river.
(c) By telling him that the children would be better off without him.
(d) By calling the police and threatening to have him recommitted.

4. What type of business did Janisse's grandfather Charlie run with his wife Clyo until he got into a fistfight that destroyed the structure?
(a) A thrift store.
(b) A restaurant.
(c) An insurance office.
(d) A pharmacy.

5. When Janisse and her brothers used to play school, with Janisse often acting as the teacher, what did they use as a chalkboard?
(a) A broken piece of chalkboard that had been salvaged from the childrens' demolished school.
(b) A bluish-green 1950 Nash car.
(c) The sanded-down back of an old easel.
(d) The concrete wall of the garage.

Short Answer Questions

1. Of the 156 million acres that used to constitute the longleaf pine's southeastern range, how many of those acres were once covered by longleaf pines?

2. In what county in Georgia was Janisse raised?

3. What type of bird was Clyde, the bird that Frank nursed back to health after finding it on the side of the highway with a broken leg and wing?

4. How often does Janisse say thunderstorms happened in the summer in their area of Georgia?

5. What does Dell, Janisse's brother, claim to have seen men stealing from the junkyard in the middle of the night?

Short Essay Questions

1. What descriptions of her homeland does Janisse give in order to support her claim that her "homeland is about as ugly as a place gets" (13)?

2. Due to their parents' religious beliefs and their resulting family rules, what were some of the practices forbidden to Janisse and her siblings?

3. When Janisse wrote that her father Frank was a "mechanic in the word's truest sense," what did she mean?

4. Why do people call certain parts of the wood of the longleaf pine "fat-lightered"?

5. How does Janisse Ray use her great-grandfather Pun's career progression to show how white-collar jobs can be even more damaging to the environment than can blue-collar jobs?

6. What example of making something out of nothing does Janisse write about when showing her father Frank's ingenuity in the chapter entitled, "Native Genius"?

7. What happened during one of the Ray family's only vacations that highlighted the fact that they were a subject of fascination for others?

8. What reasons does Janisse give for God disliking pine plantations?

9. Why did Janisse look forward so much to the days when Frank shopped at Winn-Dixie?

10. What is the author's purpose in relating the fact that her parents told their children false stories about their births?

(see the answer keys)

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