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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 was the catalyst for the "opening" of Janisse's heart referenced in the chapter title How the Heart Opens?
(a) Her discovery of her love for painting.
(b) Her father's healing from his mental illness.
(c) Her fascination with the carnivorous pitcher plant.
(d) Her brother's decision to become a minister.

2. How old was Frank when Charlie first talked him into partnering with him in the wrecking yard business?
(a) 25.
(b) 21.
(c) 18.
(d) 16.

3. What is the oldest age to which longleaf pines can live?
(a) 500 years old.
(b) 1000 years old.
(c) 200 years old.
(d) 300 years old.

4. 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?
(a) A robin.
(b) A woodpecker.
(c) A heron.
(d) A pigeon.

5. What is the official designation of the longleaf pine's status, as stated by the National Biological Service?
(a) Endangered.
(b) Virtually extinct.
(c) Extinct.
(d) Critically endangered.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did Frank's children begin to watch for as a sign that he was entering a manic phase of his mental illness?

2. When Janisse relates that the children did not believe their birth stories, what does she say would have been a more believable story for their parents to have told about her own birth?

3. In the Introduction, Janisse describes where she goes to find herself among what has been and what remains. Where is that place?

4. Though Frank did not graduate from high school, Janisse cited two other forms of education that Frank sought out and received. What were those two sources of education?

5. What chore done before a thunderstorm does Janisse use in the Introduction as a metaphor for the Georgian people seeing everything coming before it happens?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the passage regarding the bank robber Foster Sellers exhibit the theme of identity prevalent throughout the memoir?

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

3. 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)?

4. What elements did Frank consider crucial to the business of buying?

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

6. Whose idea was it to spread old shoes around underneath the grapevine and what was the intended purpose of that act?

7. How is foreshadowing used within Janisse's relation of how she used to love to play teacher with her brothers or even with her dolls?

8. On page 79, Janisse includes the text of a letter her father Frank wrote to her. In the letter, Frank wrote that he was thankful for his mental illness and that it had taught him seven lessons. What were three of those lessons he said mental illness had taught him?

9. 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?

10. Janisse said there was only one type of occasion that did not elicit shame from her role as a junkyard owner's daughter. What is the only thing that occurs that does not bring her shame?

(see the answer keys)

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