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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 game of pretend did Janisse and her brothers play inside the old school bus?
(a) Runaway school bus.
(b) Baptism.
(c) Chain gang.
(d) Zoo.

2. When Janisse's parents tell the the children the stories of their births, where do they say Janisse was found?
(a) Under a grapevine.
(b) On a bed of moss in the treehouse.
(c) In a big cabbage in the garden.
(d) In a bed of pine needles in the forest.

3. What did Frank use to beat Janisse and her brothers after they stood by while a neighbor boy killed a snapping turtle?
(a) A wooden spoon.
(b) A wooden paddle.
(c) A ruler.
(d) A belt.

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 restaurant.
(b) An insurance office.
(c) A pharmacy.
(d) A thrift store.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. When Janisse tells her father repeatedly that she does not like her piano lessons, what does she say she would rather be doing?

2. What breed was the dog that Frank treated with painkillers and saved after it had been hit by a car on the highway?

3. How old was Frank when Charlie first talked him into partnering with him in the wrecking yard business?

4. What is NOT one of the dangers Janisse's father Frank mentions when warning the children about the treacherous junkyard?

5. Who was Foster Sellers and how did he play a role in the children's junkyard games?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What are some ways in which Janisse shows her parents that she is a tomboy who likes to be outside in nature more than she enjoys any other activities?

3. 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?

4. 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?

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

6. The second sentence of the chapter entitled Timber says, "About the same time, the production of naval stores in North Carolina began to wane and big turpentine producers in North Carolina sashayed into Georgia" 99). What is the effect of the author's choice of the verb "sashayed" and what is her purpose in making that choice?

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

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

9. Why were the conditions so favorable for Frank's junkyard business to make money?

10. After explaining that "Ninety-eight percent of the presettlement longleaf pine barrents in the southeastern coastal plains were lost by 1986" (16), Janisse writes that she did not know about this loss as a child. However, she states, "But it is a loss that as an adult shadows every step I take" (16). What does she mean?

(see the answer keys)

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