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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. Where does the female badger frequently hunt while her babies are nursing?

2. At the beginning of Chapter Four, how old are the badger's babies?

3. When did William first meet the neighbor?

4. As Chapter Four opens, which of the following reasons does the author NOT say kept the badger from attacking Ben?

5. How much of the female badger's body gets caught in Burton's trap in Chapter Six?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the badger's appearance at the opening of Chapter Two.

2. Explain why the female badger did not run after her meeting with Ben.

3. Describe Ben's behavior when the family goes inside to dinner and he is left alone with the dead badger's body.

4. According to the townspeople of Winnipeg, why does Burton take his dog, Lobo, with him wherever he goes?

5. What does Esther suggest in Chapter One as the real reason Ben acts as though he is afraid of his father?

6. What happened to the badger's last litter?

7. Why does Burton wish to trap on the MacDonald's land?

8. As the prologue ends, what does the author say is the MacDonald family's greatest problem and why is that problem strange?

9. Describe the growth of the MacDonald farm in the early years of the settlement.

10. Describe how the female badger hunts prairie dogs, and what problem she might encounter in the process.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Compare and contrast the characters of George Burton and Ben MacDonald. Are they good versus evil? Or something else? In what ways are their motivations alike and different? Do they have anything in common at all?

Essay Topic 2

Readers can, to an extent, determine the strength of Ben's relationships with those around him by examining the extent to which Ben speaks with them. To which characters is Ben closest? Which characters does he not have much of a relationship with? Analyze Ben's relationship with each of his family members using his communication as evidence of his feelings.

Essay Topic 3

George Burton is banished but not necessarily defeated at the end of the novel. Does this negate his status as the embodiment of evil in the novel? Or is the author trying to say that good is not always completely victorious?

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