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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. Which of the following is Alicia’s trust officer?

2. How many questions does Malcolm prepare for Fife’s interview?

3. At which of the following times is Fife scheduled to leave for Washington?

4. Which of the following does Fife note as being among his earlier airplane trips?

5. What is Fife’s son’s middle name?

Short Essay Questions

1. What technique does Fife use to overcome panic aboard the plane?

2. How does Fife describe Malcolm’s cinematic standing?

3. What reasons does Fife give for having married Amy?

4. What reasons does Fife note for feeling sorry for Diana?

5. What question does Fife decide he will answer for Malcolm?

6. What idea does Fife advance in his colonial American literature class, and why is it flawed?

7. What reasons does Fife give for wanting to escape life with Amy in Boston?

8. What reasons does Fife give for appreciating the sounds of jet engines from inside the plane?

9. How does Amanda surprise Fife when she returns to her living room before their first assignation?

10. What reasons does Fife give for being able to confess?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Fife asks “Why are women more honest than men?” and refers to Sloan and to the women he has loved as examples (38). Does the novel bear out the underlying assumption that women are more honest than men? How or how not?

Essay Topic 2

When asked about her prior knowledge of the events Fife narrates, Emma remarks, “I don’t want to say. He gets upset when I correct him” (70). What tone is conveyed in the statement, and how is it put across?

Essay Topic 3

Consider the following passage:

There’s no such thing as the end of childhood, [Fife] says to Emma. It’s only innocence—infancy—that actually comes to an end. That’s when childhood begins, and childhood is a region, not a marker. And it is vast and extends even into old age and death. It’s like a coastal marsh between the land and the sea, he explains. It’s a zone of dwarfed trees and mudflats and estuaries, where waters flow back and forth in opposite directions following the pitch and fall of the land and the phases of the moon and the shifting patterns of the winds. (179)

Do your experience and observation support Fife’s assertion about the nature of childhood? How or how not?

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This section contains 755 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample