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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 SunRay Farms produce?

2. How much older than Tamaya is Marshall?

3. Where is the last place that anyone besides Marshall and Tamaya saw Chad?

4. Which president is Tamaya's report about?

5. What is the name of the product produced at SunRay Farms?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Marshall blame his parents for his problems with Chad?

2. When Ms. Filbert was assigning the reports about presidents, how did her behavior contradict her words?

3. What offer does Tamaya make to Marshall on their walk to school in Chapter 12, and why does she think his response is not very honest?

4. Describe the changes that occur in Tamaya's rash overnight in Chapter 12.

5. What irony does Jonathan Fitzman see in the senators' questions about the ergonyms escaping into the environment?

6. What does Tamaya rub in Chad's face, and how does Chad react?

7. What do the descriptions of the outside and inside of Tamaya's house communicate about her home?

8. What does Tamaya's response to the balloon writing prompt demonstrate about her as a person?

9. What does Tamaya and her mother's nighttime routine communicate about their relationship?

10. When he is lying awake on the night after Chad's attack, what two possible endings does Marshall imagine for a scenario where he tries to defend Tamaya from Chad?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Think about the illustration in the outer, upper corner of each page where a new chapter begins. When readers see the first illustration, do they have any way to know what it is? Is it easy to overlook? How is this similar to the equations and Tamaya's rash? What happens to the illustration as the book progresses? Think about not just the number of organisms in the Petri dish but the amount of attention they command as they increase in number. What does this have to do with the equations and Tamaya's rash? Eventually, the organisms in the illustration actually escape their dish and begin to spill down the margins of the page. What point is being made in these illustrations? What does this have to do with the equations and Tamaya's rash? Write an essay in which you demonstrate how these illustrations convey similar ideas to the ideas conveyed by the equations and Tamaya's rash. Support your ideas with evidence drawn from throughout the text, and remember that if you use quoted evidence, this should be cited in MLA format.

Essay Topic 2

Think again about the action and inaction of Tamaya and Marshall when Chad disappears. Are there other characters in this story who know that something bad is happening and either step up to try to help or stand back and try to ignore the problem? Is the story trying to say that one of these choices is morally better than the other? Is the story conveying something about how personality and circumstance both influence whether we make "good" or "bad" moral choices? Write an essay that looks at Tamaya, Marshall, and at least two other characters faced with the choice between standing up for what is right and ignoring the problem. In your essay, make and defend a claim about what message the book is trying to send about situations like this. Support your arguments with evidence drawn from throughout the book. If you use quoted evidence, remember to cite it in MLA format.

Essay Topic 3

What message does this novel convey about choosing the easy way out of a dilemma instead of choosing to do what is right, even if it is hard to do? How does this question relate to people in the book who do not seem to understand their own intentions or why they make the choices they make? How does this relate to the idea of a "Hobson's choice"? How does it relate to Woodridge Academy's emphasis on virtue and valor? Write an essay that takes and defends a position about what Fuzzy Mud communicates about making ethical choices. Support your claims with evidence drawn from throughout the text. If you use quoted evidence, remember to cite it in MLA format.

(see the answer keys)

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