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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. When Sedaris and his sister go to the gun range, what does he learn about for the first time?

2. In "Themes and Variations," who helps Sedaris choose a person to give money to at the public library?

3. In "Hurricane Season," what information does Gretchen habitually irritate Sedaris with?

4. In "Unbuttoned," what question does Lou ask his children?

5. In "Bruised," what does Clotilde occupy herself with on most days?

Short Essay Questions

1. In "Highfalutin," what two things does Amy do while she and Sedaris are shopping that he finds funny but also mortifying?

2. In "A Speech to the Graduates," what anecdote does Sedaris tell about the woman at the book-signing event, and what is this anecdote's rhetorical function?

3. In "Unbuttoned," how does Sedaris contrast his feelings about his own medical procedure with his father's behavior?

4. In "Bruised," what "secret" does Sedaris believe Olivier has discovered, and why does he guess that Olivier is struggling to accept his new knowledge?

5. In "Themes and Variations," what kinds of people does Sedaris resist giving money to?

6. In "To Serbia with Love," what criticism does Sedaris level against the American tourists Patsy deals with in Paris?

7. In "Father Time," what does Sedaris tell Harrison and Austen about whom they should try to be more like, and why?

8. In "Bruised," how does Sedaris feel his identity is flattened by his lack of French language skills?

9. In "Active Shooter," how is Lisa's concern about what she saw at Starbucks used as the basis for a joke later in the essay?

10. In "Themes and Variations," what experience does Sedaris say shaped his desire to interact warmly with his fans?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How does the structure of "Active Shooter" contribute to the essay's tone and meaning? Write an essay in which you consider how Sedaris manipulates the flow of time to create emphasis, to develop his argument, and to create juxtapositions with differing tones. Develop your analysis with clear reasoning and supportive detail from the essay itself.

Essay Topic 2

In "A Speech to the Graduates," Sedaris explicitly offers advice to younger people. But this is not the only place in Happy-Go-Lucky where he offers advice in one form or another. Choose one of the pieces of advice from "A Speech to the Graduates" and show how this advice is echoed in other essays in the collection. You might show how Sedaris enacts this advice in his own life, how he offers this advice to readers through editorializing, and/or how he explicitly offers this advice to other people he interacts with. As you choose which piece of advice to trace through the collection, be mindful not to interpret the advice too narrowly. For instance, in "A Speech to the Graduates," Sedaris offers advice about scented candles--but of course, what he is saying at a deeper level is to consider yourself worthy of an investment in quality items and experiences.

Essay Topic 3

How does the symbol of the grandfather clock unify the essay "Father Time"? How do both ideas it contains--the idea of fatherhood and the idea of time--run through the essay? How does the clock serve to unify both of these ideas into a single message? Write an essay in which you analyze the clock as a symbol. Use textual evidence to defend your idea of its symbolic significance, and then show how this symbolic significance is developed throughout the remainder of the essay. Be sure to focus attention on the relationship between the two main ideas that this clock introduces--do not simply treat them as two separate topics.

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