View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What now happens to Missy and Harlequin?

2. Where does Missy take Harlequin's gift?

3. What does the narrator find in a blueberry bush?

4. What has next door's cat left on the professor's doormat?

5. Why is diagnosing Disease Maker's Croup difficult?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does the father in 'Locks' feel that we owe it to ourselves to tell each other stories?

2. Is 'In the End' a hopeful story or a sad one?

3. In the story 'Goliath,' what is real and what is not?

4. What different kinds of vampires are there in 'Fifteen Painted Cards from a Vampire Tarot'?

5. In 'The Day the Saucer's Came' why does the person in the poem not notice such incredible events?

6. How does the father in 'Locks' interpret the story differently from his two-year-old child?

7. Why do you think Eddie Barrow lets himself be eaten in 'Feeders and Eaters'? Does he have a choice?

8. Why does Triolet say that she is a poem?

9. Is the professor the same person as Susan from the Narnia books?

10. Do the machines feel emotion?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The author often uses storytelling with first person narrators to tell his stories and poems. In which stories and poems does he do this, and why? What effect does this create? How does it complement the story that is being told?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss lessons in the stories and poems in this collection. Which poems and stories contain a moral? What kinds of morals or lessons are taught, and are they repeated in different stories? Do you think this is the author's own view?

Essay Topic 3

What exactly happens in the story 'Bitter Grounds' and what does the story mean? Does it have several meanings? Is there a message in the story?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 2,088 words (approx. 7 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample