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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. By which of the following items do Sissie's brothers wait?

2. What beverage does Sissie's father drink in the beginning of the story?

3. In the second summer, what type of insect is described as hovering around tables?

4. Whom does Sissie try to stay away from when she mentions the stuck bird?

5. When Sissie witnesses a character vomiting, where are they doing it?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Sissie say that her father looks like a stranger?

2. Describe the family dynamic in Sissie's household.

3. In Part 3, how does Sissie feel about her father?

4. What makes Sissie vulnerable?

5. Is Sissie an innocent character in the beginning of the story? Why or why not?

6. What causes Sissie to feel suffocated in the final part of the book?

7. In "Four Summers", what role are women meant to play? How does Sissie feel about this?

8. Describe the narrator's clarity in the first part of the story.

9. In what way does the diction change between the first summer and second summer?

10. What has changed in Sissie's life between the first two summers narrated?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Would you consider distrust to be a theme in the book? Who is Sissie distrustful of? Why?

Essay Topic 2

What role does the literary device parallelism play a role in the story? Compare and contrast each of the four summers to each other.

Essay Topic 3

What is the hierarchy of the sexes is the book? What are the expectations of women? What are the expectations of men? How does this relate to Sissie?

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