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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. What does Posey insist she and Chick do after supper on their one more day together?

2. What does Miss Thelma say will be her legacy after she dies?

3. Why would Chick pick up Roberta after school every day shortly after the divorce?

4. Why can Posey not find another nursing job?

5. Why does Chick lie to his family about a trip out of town on his mother's birthday?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why was Posey not impressed with Chick's baseball scholarship?

2. What did Posey often do for some of the patients in the hospital where she worked as a nurse?

3. What job does Chick learn his mother did in order to help pay his college tuition?

4. What does Chick claim he does not want to be?

5. What does the Italian woman say when she catches sight of Posey and Chick in her mirror?

6. On whom does Chick blame the break up of his marriage?

7. Who encourages Chick to leave town the day of his mother's birthday? Why?

8. Why was Posey fired from her job as a nurse?

9. Why did Chick not want his mother to go to his dorm room with him?

10. What do they call a short stay in professional baseball?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss Chick Benetto. Who is Chick Benetto? How does Chick deal with the death of his mother? How did his father's actions keep Chick from being with his mother at the end of her life? How did Chick feel about this situation? Why? Why did Chick's marriage fall apart? Why did Chick's daughter cut him out of her life? What are the consequences of these actions?

Essay Topic 2

Pick one pair of characters and discuss their relationship to one another in detail, using examples from the novel:

1) Chick and Posey

2) Chick and his father

3) Chick and Marie

4) Chick and his wife

5) Chick and his sister

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the writer's style. Discuss in detail the writer's choice to structure his book in the way he has, the use of the newspaper clips and lists, his choice of words, his use of dialogue, and his choice of chapter names. Discuss how each of these choices affects the reader's overall impression of the novel and the themes within the novel.

(see the answer keys)

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