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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What trait does Helen say her mother and Francis’ mother have in common?
(a) They both despised them.
(b) They both kept them at home too long.
(c) They both educated them.
(d) They both lied to them all the time.

2. What advice does Keats give Francis about seeing?
(a) Trust your eyes to deceive you, so pay close attention so they don’t.
(b) Be careful not to see too much.
(c) Make sure you learn the thing that you didn’t see at first glance.
(d) Don’t make any decisions until you have seen as much as possible.

3. What did Fiddler Quain do with Francis in 1901?
(a) Play baseball.
(b) Participate in the trolley strike.
(c) Ride the rails.
(d) Work at a shop.

4. Whose kidnapping did Francis’ son Billy get mixed up in?
(a) The daughter of a State Senator.
(b) The son of Albany’s political boss.
(c) The Lindbergh baby.
(d) Rosskam’s baby.

5. How did Helen’s father die?
(a) Illness.
(b) He was murdered.
(c) Jumped off a bridge.
(d) Train wreck.

6. What statement of Francis’ does Helen say is prophetic?
(a) That he never amounted to nothing.
(b) That he never knew how to take care of anyone.
(c) That he knows how to really live.
(d) That he’s always been a wanderer.

7. How does the narrator characterize Helen after her relationship with Arthur ended?
(a) A woman without a home.
(b) A windblown weed.
(c) A bird migrating to nowhere.
(d) A wasted legacy.

8. What reason does Helen give, for abdicating from life?
(a) For love.
(b) For lack of curiosity.
(c) For exhaustion.
(d) For illness.

9. What did Helen’s grandmother tell her she would do if she loved something?
(a) Kill it.
(b) Set it free.
(c) Die for it.
(d) Kill herself.

10. What does Francis say he connects scars to?
(a) Raise a ruckus.
(b) Get justice.
(c) Kill a man.
(d) Get his job back.

11. Where did Helen meet Arthur?
(a) Through a friend.
(b) On the street.
(c) Arthur’s piano store.
(d) A symphony performance.

12. What does Francis say was his mother’s attitude toward sex?
(a) Longing.
(b) Abhorrence.
(c) Respect.
(d) Sensuality.

13. What does Francis say kept him sane?
(a) The open country.
(b) Flight.
(c) Baseball.
(d) Alcohol.

14. Where does Francis ask Rosskam to stop his wagon?
(a) At the house where he was born and raised.
(b) At Finny’s car.
(c) At Annie’s house.
(d) At the Mission.

15. What does Helen say motivated her through her days?
(a) A will to redemption.
(b) A will happiness.
(c) A will to grace.
(d) A will to power.

Short Answer Questions

1. How much does Francis take in pay from Rosskam?

2. How does Helen characterize her relationship with Arthur?

3. The narrator says that even as Francis felt rich, he felt what other feeling?

4. What is William Kennedy using when he says that Helen’s money is the last twelve dollars of her life?

5. In Chapter 6, how does the narrator characterize Francis’ emotions when he arrives at Annie’s house?

(see the answer keys)

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