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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. Who is Blue?

2. At the end of Rose and Troy's conversation about Gabriel's money, where does Troy go?

3. What does Rose say is the reason that Troy never played in the major leagues?

4. What is Troy's response to Cory's question about why Troy never liked him?

5. In Act 1, Scene 4, what are Troy and Bono celebrating when they come home?

Short Essay Questions

1. What outside chore does Troy want Cory to help him with when Cory comes home from football practice?

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

3. When Troy complains that Cory is lazy, how does Rose respond?

4. What reason does Bono give Cory when he asks why Rose wants a fence?

5. What does Rose say when Troy asks her to take care of the baby?

6. Why does Troy tell Cory that he needs to get a full-time job?

7. Why did Troy go to prison as a young man?

8. Under what circumstances did Gabriel receive the injury which resulted in a metal plate being placed in his head?

9. How does Rose respond to Bono when he wonders why he stayed at his lousy first home so long?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the ways in which Troy's storytelling reveals his ideas about life. In your analysis, include his conversations with and stories about talking with Death, his story about dealing with the devil, and at least one other story.

Essay Topic 2

Explain how foreshadowing is used effectively in the play. Give examples of at least five instances in which foreshadowing comes into play--both from the standpoint of the foreshadowing itself and the event or dialogue it predicts.

Essay Topic 3

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."

(see the answer keys)

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