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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. To which of the following does Nick Dafina take Fife for drinks?

2. On what date does Fife resign from employment with Varney?

3. Through which of the following does Fife drive in Boston?

4. Which of the following are reportedly visible from Stanley’s home?

5. How much cash does Fife take when he leaves Varney?

Short Essay Questions

1. What apprehension does Fife face as he parks in front of a pharmacy in his hometown?

2. With what interviewing technique does Malcolm credit Fife?

3. How is Stanley’s house described?

4. What sentence is noted for the guilty party in Fife’s work on priestly misconduct?

5. When Fife is asked about Joan Baez and Malcolm comments, “That’s a heartbreaker, man” (130), to what does Fife note the comment refers?

6. Why does Fife muse Malcolm and Diana do not care about his account of his life?

7. Why does Fife note having felt suspicious as he leaves the bank with the deposit check from Alicia’s trust fund?

8. How does Fife explain his teenaged road trip with Nick Dafina as “clean and honorable” (188-89)?

9. What items does Fife note having in his briefcase in Boston after being separated from his luggage?

10. How does Fife describe Amy’s reaction to Boston?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Consider the following passage:

He likes the mingled odor of cigarettes and sweat and minty shampoo. He can’t catch the scent of much, but he can smell her. Young women, their scent is different and better than that of middle-aged and older women. It’s as if desire and longing for desire have distinct and different odors. When Emma leans down in the morning to kiss his cheek before leaving for their production company office downtown, he inhales the smell of English breakfast tea and unscented soap. The odor of a longing for desire. This young woman, Sloan, she smells of desire itself (7-8).

What tone does the passage convey? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 2

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?

Essay Topic 3

Describe the progress of the Chapman family’s attitude towards Fife.

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