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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. Who do the girls decide to allow in the club?

2. The March's receive a telegram saying what?

3. When Meg gives birth to twins, they decide to name the boy what?

4. The March girls' names are Meg, Beth, Amy, and what?

5. Laurie and Jo go to a nearby river to do what?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Describe the ups and downs of Jo's writing experiences in chapter twenty-four.

3. How does Meg show, in chapter twenty, that, even though much of the book goes against the tradition of the times, traditional choices are still alright for some?

4. 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.

5. How, in chapter six, do the girls' attitudes toward their neighbors grow and adapt?

6. 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.

7. When Laurie says that Jo will be the next to wed, how does Jo react and how does Laurie view her attitude?

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

9. Describe some of the ways the girls keep busy in chapter four, now that the Christmas holidays have ended.

10. What major event happens to Meg and John after they have been married for a year and how does everyone handle it?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Choose any one of the following three life lessons and explain how Louisa May Alcott uses the book to illustrate it.

1. Anger and revenge can cause more trouble later on. It is better to forgive and forget.

2. Hard work has many rewards. Laziness does not.

3. Popularity is not as important as strength of character.

Essay Topic 2

Meg's attitude early on in the book is, perhaps, the best representation of the attitude of typical girls of the time. Do you agree with how much value she placed on what was proper and what other people might think of her? Why or why not?

Essay Topic 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

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