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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. How many acres did Janisse's family's land take up, including the family home and her father Frank's junkyard?
(a) 10 acres.
(b) 15 acres.
(c) 20 acres.
(d) 4 acres.

2. When Janisse was very small and used to hide from her mother in the junkyard, what remedy did her mother use in order to find her?
(a) She tied jingle bells onto Janisse's shoes.
(b) She called the sheriff to come search for Janisse among the junk.
(c) She lured her with the promise of peaches.
(d) She waited until Janisse's father got home and sent him to find Janisse.

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 belt.
(d) A ruler.

4. What does the term bricoleur mean?
(a) A term given to a bread-maker who uses only natural ingredients.
(b) A term given to a manipulative person.
(c) A term given to folk recyclers, those who find purposes for castaway objects in which others cannot see a value.
(d) A term given to someone who cannot see a situation from another's perspective.

5. What nickname did Frank call his wife, Lee Ada?
(a) Cooks.
(b) Cook.
(c) Cookins.
(d) Cookie.

Short Answer Questions

1. What object did Frank create out of driveshafts, hollow metal rods, and fence wire?

2. How did Janisse and her brothers covertly celebrate Christmas one year without their father's knowledge?

3. What materials did Frank use in order to build the children a swing set in the backyard?

4. Why did Frank abandon after only a year the church he had founded when his children were small?

5. Pun's oft-given piece of advice to his son was, "Don't take more on your heart than you can shake off your heels." How does Janisse feel about this lesson?

Short Essay Questions

1. 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?

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. What is the effect on the reader when in the chapter entitled Junkyard, Janisse writes, "I was six the year mental illness stole my father," (77) and how does the author create that effect?

4. 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?

5. 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?

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

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

8. 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?

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

10. How does the Thingfinders Club play into the memoir's message regarding ecology?

(see the answer keys)

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