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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What do the crew members do as soon as the Town-Ho reaches port?
(a) They murder the captain.
(b) They desert the ship.
(c) They give up life on the sea.
(d) They call for help.

2. What does the narrator of "Cock-a-Doodle-Doo?" believe the rooster's crow is saying?
(a) Beware!
(b) Glory be to God in the highest!
(c) Hark!
(d) Hello!

3. What surprises the narrator when he goes to his office on a Sunday?
(a) Bartleby has stolen his things.
(b) Bartleby has been living there.
(c) Bartleby has invited friends to the office.
(d) Bartleby has been working on the weekend.

4. Why does Radney dislike Steelkilt?
(a) Steelkilt is rude.
(b) Steelkilt is unfriendly.
(c) Steelkilt is insubordinate.
(d) Steelkilt is handsome.

5. What human assumption does Melville say is the most preposterous?
(a) Criticism of the poor by the rich.
(b) Criticism of the rich by the poor.
(c) Understanding of the rich by the poor.
(d) Understanding of the poor by the rich.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Steelkilt respond to Radney's request that he sweep the deck?

2. Why does the Town-Ho's captain have to put the ship into port?

3. What does Melville believe the charities of London do for the poor?

4. What quality of Bartleby's induces the narrator to hire him?

5. What did a strange boy give the narrator in the theater?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Melville refer to Oberlus as "a creature whom it is religion to detest?"

2. What are Turkey's shortcomings as a scrivener?

3. Why does the narrator continue to accept Bartleby's refusals?

4. Why did the two remaining followers of Steelkilt each hope to be the first out of the hold?

5. How does the poet Blandmour feel about poverty in "Poor Man's Pudding"?

6. Why does Melville come to believe that some buccaneers on the isle of Albermarle must have been gentlemen?

7. How does the creditor in "Cock-a-Doodle-Doo" torment the narrator?

8. Why did the first seven of Steelkilt's men come out of their imprisonment?

9. Why does Melville call Redondo the "aviary of the ocean"?

10. In "The Happy Failure," what is the uncle's great invention?

(see the answer keys)

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