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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. How do Mike and Dru get back to Mike's car?

2. What does Scooter say about Mike and the party?

3. What does Dru do when she goes in Elisa's house?

4. When will Dru be going to Northwestern?

5. What does Lizzie know that Dru knows also?

Short Essay Questions

1. What do Scooter and Elisa bring to the Nail with them, how is Scooter feeling, how does Elisa react to Dru and what does Scooter go do?

2. Who drives Dru and MIke back to Mike's car and what is Diane like?

3. How is Elisa awoken after Dru had put her to bed and what does she do about Scooter's invitation? How does Dru react?

4. What is it like at the Nail right before Elisa and Scooter jump, what does Lizzie say and what does Mike do with Dru?

5. Where do Dru and Mike go at the beginning of Chapter Two, what is it like there, who else is there, and what does Dru hope?

6. What does Dru do after Elisa falls asleep and how does she feel about her dad?

7. How does Diane feel about Mike?

8. What is the Nail and who has been hurt on it?

9. What does Mike say about Scooter jumping?

10. What does Mike say about his father and Dru's mother in the car?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Oftentimes, a book has more of a character-driven plot rather than action driven, and sometimes it is the other way around. Some books seem to balance the two. Discuss the following:

1. What do you think it means to say that a plot is character driven? Action driven?

2. How do you think a plot differs if it is character driven versus action driven?

3. Which type of plot do you find more interesting? Why?

4. Do you think it is possible to have a plot where action and character development share equal time? Why or why not.

5. What type of plot do you think "Jumping the Nail" is? Explain your response.

Essay Topic 2

The boot symbolizes an omen. It is shredded and floats atop the water eerily. It is black, the color of mourning or death, showing that something ominous had occurred when Elisa was in the water. Even Elisa's foot is red and blotchy. Elisa cannot talk. All of this foreshadows that Elisa lost a part of herself underwater, or in other words, experienced a death of her true self.

1. What is an omen? Do you think it is the same as foreshadow? Discuss what you thought when you read of the boot and what significance you thought it might have. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

2. Discuss the symbolism of the boot in Elisa's life and, in some small degree, in all the teenagers who have conjugated at the Nail. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

3. Do you think Elisa lost a part of her true self underwater or do you think she has been losing that since she started to date Scooter? Why or why not? Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

Essay Topic 3

Elisa represents the battered woman. She has battered woman syndrome in an emotional sense. She does not see how Scooter really treats her and accepts the emotional abuse as part of her life. Even when Dru points out his controlling number counting, Elisa defends him. She chooses to be emotionally abused and Dru remembers that other people see this too, as she remembers Tom's comment.

1. With research, discuss why Elisa displays the symptoms of an emotionally battered woman. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

2. Do you think Scooter's behavior towards Elisa is controlling or do you think it is typical teenage male behavior? Why or why not? Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

3. Discuss what you would say to a good friend who was in a relationship where their significant other abused them emotionally or degraded them as a person. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

(see the answer keys)

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