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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 does Joannie convince Elizabeth to allow her classmates to do in Chapter 4?

2. What is the name of the woman who gets Elizabeth to Dunlaoghaire?

3. Who stands up for Donal in Chapter 5?

4. Who is Elizabeth employed by at the end of Chapter 7?

5. What amuses Eileen about Elizabeth in Chapter 2?

Short Essay Questions

1. What could have interfered with Eileen's willingness to take in Elizabeth?

2. When Elizabeth sees Violet and Harry in Chapter 8, what does Harry encourage her to do? How has her mother changed?

3. How does Elizabeth continue her conversion to Catholicism in Chapter 5?

4. In regard to how Eileen would view her actions, what does Elizabeth decide in Chapter 9?

5. What horrifies young Sean when Elizabeth arrives in Chapter 2?

6. How does Joannie end up being sent to a convent school in Chapter 7?

7. What does Joannie Murray do in Chapter 4?

8. What does Elizabeth write to Aisling about in Chapter 9?

9. In Chapter 10, to what does Aisling equate sex?

10. What does Aisling report in a letter to Elizabeth in Chapter 6?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss Elizabeth's pregnancy and abortion. How does she become pregnant? Is it a surprise to her? How does she come to the conclusion to abort her pregnancy? What does Aisling think of abortion? Why does she feel this way? How does Elizabeth's abortion cause problems years later?

Essay Topic 2

Analyze and interpret the parent-child relationships in the novel. Discuss the ups and downs of the following relationships:

a) Elizabeth and Violet/ Harry.

b) Elizabeth and George.

c) Sean Sr. and Sean Jr.

d) Aisling and Eileen.

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the setting of the novel. How important is the setting to novel? How does WWII affect the characters? What does Ireland teach Elizabeth? What does England teach Aisling? What differences are illustrated between England and Ireland? What if the novel had been set in a different place and time? In your opinion, would the choices of the protagonists be different? If so, how?

(see the answer keys)

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