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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 does Bill say is a big improvement in America concerning business phone numbers?
(a) Business calls cannot be made into people's homes.
(b) The 1-800 numbers are easy to remember.
(c) They are preprogrammed on everyone's phone.
(d) They are only four-digits.

2. What does Bill say about American sports teams that would never happen in Britain?
(a) The players play for small salaries.
(b) A team can move its franchise to a new city.
(c) The players are all polite.
(d) The teams have cheerleaders.

3. Why does Bryson think the cupholder revolution is a bit strange?
(a) People shouldn't be drinking and driving.
(b) Americans are spoiled and want every little convenience.
(c) The car makers should make better cars and forget the cupholders.
(d) Some cars have way more cupholders than capacity for passengers.

4. What is Bill's wife's reaction to his new American haircut?
(a) She says he must have said something to upset the barber.
(b) She bursts into tears.
(c) She says she wants to send their sons there, too.
(d) She loves it.

5. What does Bryson say about American gardens?
(a) They are mostly bushes.
(b) They are mostly roses.
(c) They are mostly lawn.
(d) They are mostly weeds.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why does Bill prefer the post offices in the U.S. to the ones in Britain?

2. When Bill phones the computer hotline to ask for help, what information do they ask him for first?

3. What does Bill say it would take over 31,000 years to do?

4. In "Dying Accents," what is the name of the man who does carpentry around the Bryson house?

5. What does Bill like about having a college as part of he town he lives in?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Bryson find going to a restaurant in the United States so difficult, as expressed in "What's Cooking"? How does he address the issue of the many varieties of food out there?

2. Bryson calls America "the ultimate shopping paradise" in "Consuming Pleasures." How does he support this statement?

3. What does Bryson say about regional accents in America in the 1990s in "Dying Accents"?

4. In "The Risk Factor," how does Bryson explain that the average American is twice as likely to die accidentally as the average Briton?

5. How does Bryson feel about gardening? What are his feelings concerning gardening with his mate in "Gardening With My Wife"?

6. What information about household accidents in America does Bryson give the reader in "Well, Doctor. I was Just Trying to Lie Down..."? Where did he find his information?

7. In "A Visit to the Barbershop," how does Bryson convey that adjusting to the small town barbershop is difficult?

8. In "On the Hotline," how does dental floss become the topic of this essay? What is the outcome of Bryson's reading the fine print on his floss packaging?

9. In "Coming Home" Bryson says he is "gamely assessing" the concept of not being able to go home again. What circumstances took him away from the United States in the 1970s? How did he spend the following two decades in England? What is his reaction on returning to the United States in 1996?

10. Bryson finds the lack of privacy in America to be a problem. List three examples of this problem that he cites in "Snoopers at Work."

(see the answer keys)

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