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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 happens when Montezuma asks his people not to fight back against the Spanish?
(a) He stirs the Aztecs to resist even more fiercely than before.
(b) He is hit on the head by a stone, which kills him.
(c) He frightens the Aztecs and they run away.
(d) He convinces the Aztecs to lay down their arms peacefully.

2. Which of the following names does the narrator call Raleigh?
(a) James' man.
(b) The new King.
(c) The planter who never planted.
(d) Explorer of the Orinoco.

3. Why isn't the French Conquest as severe as the Spanish one?
(a) The Spanish want furs but the French want gold.
(b) The Spanish have many explorers to help but the French have only a couple.
(c) The Spanish massacre Indians but the French just marry local women.
(d) The Spanish are much more gentle than the French.

4. What happens when Raleigh returns to England after his son's death?
(a) He is stripped of his knighthood.
(b) He is knighted.
(c) He is beheaded.
(d) He is sent away on another voyage.

5. How does Williams suggest that Ponce de Leon feels when he hears about Cortez and the wealth of Montezuma?
(a) Restless.
(b) Angry.
(c) Jealous.
(d) Happy.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who is Freydis?

2. Why does the narrator say that Raleigh is now in Hell?

3. In his conclusion, what word does Gregory use to characterize Williams' prose?

4. What does Columbus want to do instead of traveling to the New World again?

5. Why does Columbus count fewer leagues than he knows he has traveled?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Houston leave the Cherokees after they have raised him? Why does he return to them?

2. What does Cotton Mather say went wrong before the witches appeared?

3. Gregory says that In the American Grain is not a historical textbook or book of essays. What is it?

4. What do you think will happen to the "credulous and literal-minded" if they walk into the "ancient trap" that Gregory considers history to be?

5. What does the narrator of "Sir Walter Raleigh" imply when he exhorts the Muse to sing of "the pursuit of beauty and the husk that remains," or when he says that Raleigh's England became "a mouthful of smoke sucked from the embers of a burnt weed"?

6. What does the narrator say that the Puritans would see if they looked inside their hearts?

7. Why does Gregory not fully appreciate the chapter on Cotton Mather?

8. Why does the narrator hold Raleigh responsible for Raleigh's son's death?

9. How does Williams explain the fact that Aaron Burr was never made ambassador to France, even though he was recommended three times for the appointment, and that he was never made Brigadier General, even though he was ready for the post?

10. Why does Williams say that Mendelberg is like a woman as he conducts his orchestra? How is Lincoln like Mendelberg?

(see the answer keys)

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