View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Jake tell Mr. Singer that he had once done to his hand?

2. Where did Mick Kelly take her brothers on Sunday morning?

3. What does Jake ask the three men sitting on the step?

4. What about Jake Blount seems to stand out most to Brannon?

5. What magazine does Mick look at when she went to the library?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why were the black families so hard hit with problems during the month of February?

2. Why does Jake Blount bring a black man into the restaurant with him when he knew blacks cannot eat in the same place as white people?

3. What caused the riot at the Sunny Dixie Show?

4. What happens when Jake Blount finally meets, Simms, the man who wrote the message on the wall?

5. What do Biff Brannon and his wife, Alice, argue about when they are first introduced to the story?

6. Why is Portia so determined that her father should live with her grandfather and other brothers when he is so different from them?

7. How does Jake Blount react when he realizes Mister Singer was deaf and mute?

8. What impact does the situation with Hitler in Europe have on Harry and Mick?

9. What does Jake Blount mean when he speaks about "us," saying he doesn't know how many of us there are in this country?

10. In what ways do Portia and her father differ in their reaction to Willie's punishment in prison and the loss of his feet?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the difference between this Southern town and Northern towns of equal size? Does the location of the story make a difference in this story? Why? How would the story change if it took place in a different location? What would be lost from the story?

Essay Topic 2

Most of the characters intertwined with one another throughout the novel; however, most had an independent relationship with John Singer. In what ways was his role in the story important? Would the entire novel have had enough substance without him in the story? What role did he play?

Essay Topic 3

Evaluate Jake Blount's statement, "The old cow grazes all over--in the south, the west, the north, and the east. But she's milked in just one place." What did he mean by this analogy?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 954 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample