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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who wrote “A Biographical Interpretation” of Rebecca Harding Davis’s “Life in the Iron Mills”?
(a) Deborah Hedwall
(b) Anne Bogart
(c) Clare Clifton
(d) Tillie Olsen

2. What feeder at the mill does Hugh look down on at the marketplace from his cell in “Life in the Iron Mills”?
(a) Neff Sanders
(b) Mr. Peters
(c) Pete Small
(d) Mr. Clarke

3. How many men are in the group of visitors that come through the mill where Hugh works in “Life in the Iron Mills”?
(a) 5-6
(b) 10-11
(c) 2-3
(d) 8-9

4. Rebecca Harding Davis was the eldest of how many children in her family?
(a) 2
(b) 3
(c) 5
(d) 4

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

6. The author of “A Biographical Interpretation” states that Rebecca Harding Davis grew up along what river?
(a) The Ohio River
(b) The Colorado River
(c) The Columbus River
(d) The Hudson River

7. The narrator states in “Life in the Iron Mills,” “These great turning-days of life cast no shadow before, slip by unconsciously. Only a trifle, a little turn of the rudder, and the ship goes” where?
(a) To heaven or hell
(b) To the river
(c) To port or to sea
(d) To the left or the right

8. What night of the week is it that Deborah brings Hugh his dinner at the mill in the beginning of “Life in the Iron Mills”?
(a) Tuesday
(b) Monday
(c) Saturday
(d) Sunday

9. What word does the narrator use in the beginning of “Life in the Iron Mills” to refer to a person who takes up an art, activity, or subject merely for amusement?
(a) Debutante
(b) Diva
(c) Maestro
(d) Dilettante

10. What kind of tobacco does the narrator describe the drunken Irishmen puffing on in the beginning of “Life in the Iron Mills”?
(a) Williamsburg tobacco
(b) Skydancer tobacco
(c) Lynchburg tobacco
(d) Lucky Strike tobacco

11. Dr. May says in “Life in the Iron Mills,” “That is true philosophy. Drift with the stream, because you cannot” what?
(a) Swim against the current
(b) Answer for the current
(c) Face the harshness of the deep
(d) Dive deep enough to find bottom

12. 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) 10 years
(b) 4 years
(c) 20 years
(d) 30 years

13. The narrator in the beginning of “Life in the Iron Mills” refers to the reader as “You, Egoist, or Pantheist, or” what?
(a) Polarized
(b) Leonine
(c) Arminian
(d) Argentine

14. What is the name of Rebecca Harding Davis’s eldest son who became a writer and journalist?
(a) Peter Harding Davis
(b) Richard Harding Davis
(c) John Harding Davis
(d) James Harding Davis

15. One of the visiting men tells the owner’s son at the mill in “Life in the Iron Mills,” “If it were not that you must have heard it so often, I would tell you that your works looks like” what?
(a) The fires of the underworld
(b) The Apocalypse
(c) Dante’s Inferno
(d) The River Styx

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Hugh use to commit suicide in jail in “Life in the Iron Mills”?

2. How does the narrator describe Janey’s eyes in “Life in the Iron Mills”?

3. Where does Deborah say Hugh was born in “Life in the Iron Mills”?

4. Rebecca Harding Davis is credited with over how many published works?

5. Of Hugh Wolfe, the narrator says in “Life in the Iron Mills,” “Yet he was kind to her: it was his nature to be kind, even to the very” what?

(see the answer keys)

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