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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. When Janisse's family said grace before each meal, each child in the family was required to say something. What were they required by Frank to say?
(a) An expression of love toward God.
(b) A memorized Bible verse.
(c) Something for which each child is thankful.
(d) The Lord's Prayer in its entirety.

2. When tree farming became common practice in 1940, why was the longleaf pine rarely planted by tree farmers?
(a) It did not bring as much money as other species of tree.
(b) Its seedlings were too expensive.
(c) It required too much room to grow.
(d) Its taproot was unwieldy and it grew slowly.

3. 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?
(a) Survival skills he learned from growing up with an abusive father and enrollment at an auto mechanics school.
(b) Knowledge about politics he gleaned from his friend Curtis Hamilton, a former state senator, and street smarts he learned from his father Charlie.
(c) Enrollment at a business school downtown and the math instruction he received from his grandfather while learning to survey.
(d) Cooking skills he had learned from his mother-in-law, Beulah, and sales skills he had absorbed from his father Charlie.

4. Why did Frank abandon after only a year the church he had founded when his children were small?
(a) He wanted to move the family to a different county.
(b) He did not think his growing congregation was devoted enough to their faith.
(c) He felt that God had not officially or personally called him to preach.
(d) He did not know how he could make enough money as a preacher in order to support his large family.

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

Short Answer Questions

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

2. Janisse uses a quote from which novel to begin Chapter 3, Shame?

3. Janisse describes her area of southern Georgia as lying below the fall line. What does she say that fall line serves to separate from one another?

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

5. Janisse references a line of literature that may be the original source of the term 'Cracker': Who wrote the line, "What cracker is this same that deafes our eares with this abundance of superfluous breath?"

Short Essay Questions

1. 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?

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

3. 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?

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

5. 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"?

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

7. 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?

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. 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?

10. 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)?

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