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

Short Answer Questions

1. When Rose asks Gabriel if he wants breakfast, what does he say?

2. What does Troy say about a boy who lies to his father?

3. What does Troy say that he has to do because he is afraid of the devil?

4. As Cory runs out of the house, late for a game, what does Rose say to him?

5. Where does the money come from that Rose gives Lyons?

Short Essay Questions

1. What story does Troy tell about the time he saw Death in person?

2. After Lyons arrives in Act 1, Scene 4, Gabriel reveals to Rose that he thinks Troy is mad at him for what reason?

3. What did Gabriel receive as compensation for his injury?

4. What warning does Bono give Troy about Rose?

5. When he comes home for Troy's funeral, what does Cory find out that Lyons has been doing over the last few years?

6. Why does Gabriel say that the bad men arrested him?

7. What does Troy say when Rose wonders who's going to bury Alberta?

8. What does Gabriel do at the end of the play?

9. Gabriel is no longer living at the boarding house; where has he now been taken?

10. Why is Troy, many months after revealing his affair, still coming home every night?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss how the August Wilson poem, which appears before the play, applies to the play's characters and themes.

"When the sins of our fathers visit us

We do not have to play house.

We can banish them with forgiveness

As God, in His Largeness and his Laws."

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the evolution of Troy and Bono's relationship, explaining how long the two had been friends, how their relationship could be described at the beginning of the play, as well as how and why it changed by the end of the play.

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the structure of the play, examining the time frame during which the play is set. How does Wilson alert the audience/reader to the passage of time from scene to scene? In your analysis, include your ideas about why Wilson made the decision to start the play when Cory was a high school student and end it nearly eight years later. Discuss the ways changes in other characters could only have been accomplished by using that time frame.

(see the answer keys)

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