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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. How did the police sometimes help crossing sweeps?

2. How did the renters of low lodging houses eat?

3. What was the name of the vaudeville show costers enjoyed?

4. How did wholesale suppliers cheat costers?

5. What were the two usual reasons customers bought from patterers?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did patterers earn their living and what is an example of a story that demonstrated a patterer's skill?

2. What area of trade did the Jewish traders dominant and what did Ragmen do?

3. How did crossing sweeps earn a living?

4. How much education did most costermongers have and what was the general extent of their intellectual abilities?

5. How did dustmen and mudlarks help each other?

6. What did the patterers do who could be classified as entertainers?

7. What caused a class hierarchy in immigrants in London?

8. What were the largest group of London street people and what did they do for a living?

9. What types of generalizations did Mayhew make about the London street people and how did this reflect Victorian thinking on industrialization?

10. What was the usual marriage and family situations like with costermongers?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Most costermongers were uneducated, and had attended the free public schools only for a few years, or not at all. Although costers were adept at adding and subtracting to figure their profits, they were ignorant of multiplication and very few could read or write.

1. Discuss how lack of education contributes to poverty. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

2. Discuss some of the reasons that might keep a child of a costermonger family from attending free public schools. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

3. Taking into consideration the factors of poverty, should the government of London in this era have made school mandatory? Why or why not? Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

Essay Topic 2

Mayhew states that the necessity of finding food separates animals from plants. Humans also must work for a living. Someone who is physically or mentally unable to work must rely on others, or on charity.

1. Discuss what you think separates animals from plants that are different from what Mayhew has said. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

2. Do you think all humans should have to work for a living? Why or why not? Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

3. What types of obligations do you think society has towards the physically or mentally handicapped? Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

Essay Topic 3

The city of London used 3.5 million tons of coal each year and generated millions of tons of ash and soot. Dustmen were hired to haul off the ashes and dust, as well as haul away garbage and keep the streets clean.

1. Do you think London at this time might have been more polluted than modern cities? Why or why not? Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

2. Discuss how you think the quality of the air in London in this era might have affected people's lives. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

3. Discuss, in depth, the ways in which a dustman's life and health would have been affected by the job. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,276 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample