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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. The narrator in “Life in the Iron Mills” says that it is nearly how long since the Wolfes lived in the boarding house in the beginning of the story?
(a) 4 years
(b) 20 years
(c) 10 years
(d) 30 years

2. What establishment does the narrator describe across the street when she looks out window in the beginning of “Life in the Iron Mills”?
(a) A tavern
(b) A funeral parlor
(c) A grocer’s shop
(d) A barbershop

3. The narrator in “Life in the Iron Mills” describes Hugh Wolfe as “A morbid, gloomy man, untaught, unled, left to feed his soul in” what?
(a) Grossness and crime, and hard, grinding labor
(b) Art and beauty based on memories of his youth
(c) Taverns and brothels and wherever sick men live
(d) Poverty and Godliness

4. In what year did the author of “A Biographical Interpretation” republish Life in the Iron Mills and Other Stories?
(a) 1992
(b) 1988
(c) 1969
(d) 1972

5. Where does Deborah go to live after serving her jail sentence in “Life in the Iron Mills”?
(a) With Old Wolfe
(b) With Janey and her husband
(c) With the Quakers
(d) With her mother

6. From whom did Deborah presumably steal the money in “Life in the Iron Mills”?
(a) Mr. Kirby
(b) Mr. Mitchell
(c) Mr. Wolfe
(d) Dr. May

7. The mill-owner’s son tells his companions in “Life in the Iron Mills,” “If I had the making of men, these men who do the lowest part of the world’s work should be” what?
(a) Put out of their misery
(b) Robots
(c) Slaves
(d) Machines

8. When was Margret Howth published?
(a) 1884
(b) 1861
(c) 1798
(d) 1914

9. What kind of bird does the narrator describe chirping desolately beside her in a cage in the beginning of “Life in the Iron Mills”?
(a) A sparrow
(b) A parakeet
(c) A parrot
(d) A canary

10. Mitchell says of the laborers at the iron mill in “Life in the Iron Mills,” “Let them have a clear idea of the rights of the soul, and I’ll venture next week they’ll” what?
(a) Strike for higher wages
(b) Bludgeon you for your kindness
(c) Quit for a life of poetry
(d) Strike out to the sea

11. What action is referenced in “Life in the Iron Mills” as “the peculiar action of a man dying of thirst”?
(a) Clutching
(b) Slinking
(c) Pursing
(d) Clinging

12. What is Hugh’s charge for the theft of the money in “Life in the Iron Mills”?
(a) Bearing false witness
(b) Grand larceny
(c) Petty larceny
(d) Heresy

13. The narrator describes the mill workers in the beginning of “Life in the Iron Mills” as “laired in by day in dens of drunkenness and” what?
(a) Tyranny
(b) Infamy
(c) Rebellion
(d) Misery

14. At what time does Deborah return home from the cotton mill in the beginning of “Life in the Iron Mills”?
(a) 11:00
(b) 3:00
(c) 1:00
(d) 10:00

15. Of Deborah, the narrator says in “Life in the Iron Mills,” “Perhaps the weak, flaccid wretch had some stimulant in her pale life to keep her up—some love or hope, it might be, or urgent need. When that stimulant was gone, she would take to” what?
(a) The river
(b) Whiskey
(c) Lacquer
(d) Opium

Short Answer Questions

1. The mill where Hugh Wolfe works makes iron for what in “Life in the Iron Mills”?

2. Mitchell claims in “Life in the Iron Mills,” “Reform is born of need, not” what?

3. What is the name of the jailer in “Life in the Iron Mills”?

4. What Latin phrase, translated as “Hungry and thirsty, his soul faints him” is used in “Life in the Iron Mills”?

5. What is the name of the man that goes about town lighting the lamps at dusk in “Life in the Iron Mills”?

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