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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. What river is Sleepy Hollow beside?

2. What season is it in Sleepy Hollow the night of the Van Tassel event?

3. Which of his students does Ichabod discriminately apply discipline?

4. What do the men discuss immediately after the dancing at the Van Tassel party?

5. What is Ichabod's greatest fear of encountering when walking home at night?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the irony of the farmer's claim that Ichabod was alive and was judging others?

2. What is the significance of Ichabod leading others in psalms and proudly standing in church singing?

3. What is the purpose of describing Tarry Town before actually talking about Sleepy Hollow where the story takes place?

4. Why does the narrator refer to Ichabod as a "gawky bird" when seated upon Gunpowder?

5. Why is Ichabod's appetite for the occult a necessary part of the plot?

6. Why is it important that the reader knows the action part of the tale takes place thirty years previous to the time of the telling of the story?

7. How does the storyteller use similes to describe the school and Ichabod's students?

8. How do the descendants of Sleepy Hollow play into the story's atmosphere and mood?

9. Why does the narrator compare Katrina Van Tassel to food?

10. What qualifies the tale at the beginning of the story?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How does the author's methods at the beginning of the story set the tone?

Part 1) How does the usage of the quatrain poem further promote the tone?

Part 2) How does the poem's word choice also promote the tone?

Part 3) The papers are said to be found amongst those of a dead man. How does this promote the tone?

Essay Topic 2

Determine the antagonist in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and defend your opinion with details from the text.

Essay Topic 3

How does the author set the story up so that the reader believes anything can happen? How does he toy with the reader? What phrases and word choices does he use to convey the mystic of the story?

(see the answer keys)

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