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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 the breakfast consist of while Marmee is taking her day off?

2. Left alone in the library, Jo studies what?

3. Marmee tells a tale at dinner about meeting a man who had four sons in the war, but two of them did what?

4. Mr. Brooke comes to the house to retrieve what?

5. Jo tells her aunts that she is against what?

Short Essay Questions

1. What are the girls' feelings toward the role of women in society, and how do they show these feelings in chapter ten?

2. How does Jo's attitude in chapter twenty-six effect each of her visits?

3. How does Jo react to Mr. Brooke taking an interest in Meg?

4. Describe Jo's attitude in chapter three and how it defies conventional thinking in that era.

5. Describe the differences between each of the March girls.

6. How is the idea that leisure doesn't pay neatly illustrated by Marmee for all of the girls in chapter eleven?

7. Describe how the men at the picnic in chapter eleven, Fred Vaughn, Laurie, and Mr. Brooke, reveal their true feelings and their character to the girls.

8. Describe how Amy's planned party for her art school friends goes in chapter twenty-three.

9. Alcott only wrote Little Women at her publisher's suggestion. She preferred to write more adult novels. Describe the similarity between her feelings and those of Jo and her family in the book.

10. Explain how Marmee's hope, in chapter nine, that her children will be happy, whether married or single, reflects the changing times when Alcott was writing the book in the 1860s.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Louisa May Alcott had somewhat nontraditional views of a woman's role in the late 1800s.

Part 1: Describe how Jo's attitude in the beginning of the book reflects those views.

Part 2: Explain how Jo's attitude grew and changed toward the end of the book.

Part 3: Describe how Marmee's hopes for her daughters reflects Alcott's nontraditional view. Were Marmee's hopes fulfilled?

Essay Topic 2

Do you agree with the overall way Jo led her life throughout the book? Explain why you agree or disagree with her nontraditional views and choices.

Essay Topic 3

In part I of the book, the girls have to make sacrifices due to the War. Explain the family hardships that go on, both financial and personal, and how the girls overcome them.

(see the answer keys)

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