View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Evvie knows to ask the woman at the door for a business card because which character had done the same for her after Tim's accident?

2. Evvie tells Dean that her father had been a lobsterman for nearly how many years before he retired two years before the narrative present?

3. What television show is the shared guilty pleasure of Evvie and Dean once he moves into the apartment?

4. Dean and Evvie agree that Maine is "the oldest and" most what "state in the country" (71)?

5. In Fall: Chapter 2, it is revealed that Andy has been divorced for how many years?

Short Essay Questions

1. Name and discuss one coping mechanism Evvie used to make it through her days during her marriage to Tim.

2. What event is revealed at the end of the prologue to have brought a halt to Evvie's plans?

3. What is revealed to have happened the one time when best friends Andy and Evvie had tried to view one another in a romantic light?

4. What is the history of the friendship between Dean and Andy?

5. Which comment of Frank's makes Evvie furious during Thanksgiving dinner and why?

6. How did Dean end up attending Cornell, according to him?

7. How does Holmes weave together issues of class with issues of domestic abuse?

8. Name and discuss a second coping mechanism Evvie used to combat the feelings inspired by her unhappy marriage, according to the narrator.

9. What elements does Evvie name when she tells Dean the topics that concern the citizens of Calcasset?

10. When Dean expresses his appreciation to Evvie at the end of Fall: Chapter 5, what two specific elements does he name?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Trace the characterization arc of Evvie’s character throughout the novel Evvie Drake Starts Over. Discuss whether Evvie is a round or flat character and whether she is a static or dynamic character.

Essay Topic 2

Discuss Holmes's choice to tell the story of Evvie Drake Starts Over using a third person limited omniscient narrator. What elements of the novel's themes lend themselves to this choice and what are Holmes’s intended effects on the reader?

Essay Topic 3

What is the function of Andy’s character within the novel? Discuss the characterization methods used by Holmes in depicting Andy and include in your discussion the reasons that Holmes utilizes him in these particular ways.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,320 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample