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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 not easy to do as one ages?

2. Where does Nora find herself at the time she moves?

3. What might some consider cooking to be?

4. Why does it seem pointless to answer honestly if a friend says you look great?

5. Where can you look for advice about parenting, but be advised that there are many different opinions?

Short Essay Questions

1. What kind of a job is parenting?

2. Who is Nora Ephron?

3. What does Nora think of unwanted hairs and hair removal?

4. What does Nora claim affects people more than anything else?

5. What is happening to Nora's eyesight and what is she having trouble doing?

6. What happens when Nora finally gets reading glasses?

7. What are Nora's thoughts on exercise?

8. What does the new purse Nora gets after returning from Paris look like?

9. What is the third stage of parenting?

10. Why does Nora travel to Paris?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay on the Bill and Monica scandal. Looking back on this scandal, compared with the politics going on in the world at that time, does the scandal seems inconsequential? Or not? Describe 3 reasons the scandal was as blown up as it was, according to the sociological factors influencing the media at the time. Lastly, do you think the scandal should have been so publicly acknowledged? Was the media's influence on it inappropriate or do Americans have the right to know everything about their leader? Include the opinion of experts as well as your own.

Essay Topic 2

Nora describes the feeling of reading and finishing a book as the feeling of being a deep sea diver, coming up to the surface and needing to decompress or else running the risk of getting "the bends". Write a critical book review of your favorite novel, one that made you feel the rapture Nora speaks of. Discuss character, plot, climax, and resolution. If you have not felt that type of rapture, write an essay on what you imagine that feeling to be like, using the diver analogy. Make sure you take a critical, academic approach to the book review so that the reader is drawn in, much like they are in a novel.

Essay Topic 3

Nora Ephron talks about the glamour and public intrigue with the Kennedy White House. It was deemed the time of "Camelot". America has a love affair with fame. Fame sometimes serves as a justification for living. Write an essay on the reality of fame, public intrigue, and glamour. Refer to 3 contemporary "stars" and how fame and fortune have affected their life, either for good or for not. Explain how public people often have to protect their private life and how fame might just be an illusion to happiness.

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