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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 is Marshall's best subject in school?

2. When Marshall tells Tamaya he is sorry after she falls down in the woods, what is he apologizing for?

3. Who is Merilee?

4. When Tamaya's mother first sees Tamaya's rash, what does she mistake it for?

5. What is the name of the scientist who invented the product made at SunRay Farms?

Short Essay Questions

1. What ideas are conveyed by the description of the history of the building Woodridge Academy is housed in?

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

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

4. Describe how Marshall's attitude toward Tamaya has changed over the years.

5. 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?

6. Why has Chad come to Woodridge Academy?

7. When he is lying away on the night after Chad's attack, what does Marshall decide is his best hope for a final ending to the situation with Chad?

8. What advice of Ms. Filbert's does Tamaya think about as she is about to go into the woods, and why does she think about it?

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

10. What is Tamaya's attitude toward following rules?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

You have spent some time thinking about how Tamaya and Fitzman demonstrate opposite attitudes toward personal responsibility. But what about other characters in this book? Choose another character and write about their attitude on this subject. What things does the character do and say that show whether they think ahead about how their actions will impact themselves and others? When something goes wrong, does the character accept responsibility or try to blame the problem on others, or blame their circumstances? What message does this send about the importance of personal responsibility? Support your claims with evidence drawn from throughout the text. If you use quoted evidence, remember to cite it in MLA format.

Essay Topic 2

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.

Essay Topic 3

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.

(see the answer keys)

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