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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 Donna Jones's job at SunRay farms?

2. When Tamaya finds Chad in the woods, what is Chad's primary worry about his current situation?

3. When Marshall spots Tamaya and Chad in the woods, what does he do for the first time?

4. What does Marshall worry might mean he is a bad person?

5. What point does Marshall make about Tamaya when he is talking with Mrs. Thaxton about her disappearance?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Chad answer Tamaya's question about why he acts the way he does?

2. What makes Mrs. Thaxton feel so guilty about Tamaya's disappearance?

3. What happens when Mr. Walsh shows up at Woodridge to pick up Marshall?

4. How does Tamaya end up getting more fuzzy mud on her, and how does her response show her common sense?

5. How does Tamaya try to ensure that she will be able to find her way back out of the woods?

6. How does Tamaya's parents' divorce make her feel as if she is always missing something?

7. When they are in the woods together, what does Tamaya learn about Chad's story about the hermit?

8. What condition is Chad in when Tamaya finally finds him?

9. When they are in the woods together, what does Chad reveal is behind his anger toward Marshall?

10. Why does no one realize that Marshall is missing when he goes into the woods to look for Tamaya?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What kind of a person is Marshall? What elements of direct and indirect characterization convey this to the reader? How does Sachar gradually shift the reader's understanding of this character throughout the course of the book? Write an essay that makes a claim about the impression that is created by the reader's first introduction to Marshall, in Chapters 1-3, and how this impression changes beginning with Chapter 4. Offer evidence to support your observations that is drawn from both direct and indirect sources of characterization throughout the book.

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

How do the realistic setting, characters, and plot of Fuzzy Mud all interact to keep the reader engaged in the story? Why does it matter that the story is set in ordinary places like a school, the woods, and students' homes? How do the thoughts and feelings of the ordinary children in this story help the reader bond with them? How does this bond increase the reader's engagement? In what ways is the plot realistic, and why does it matter that these things could really happen? Write an essay that uses evidence drawn from plot, characterization, and setting to show the many ways in which Fuzzy Mud is realistic and how Sachar's use of realism keeps the reader engaged.

(see the answer keys)

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