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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 Will know is in Shawn’s corner-store bag in Chapter One?

2. Why is Will surprised that the girl can see the smoke in the elevator in Chapter Three?

3. What does Buck tell Will to do when Will is scared by the elevator in Chapter Two?

4. What is happening to Buck’s cigarette in Chapter Three?

5. In Chapter One, what does Will say happened to his brother Shawn?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who was Buck to Shawn as described in Chapter Two? What does Buck give Shawn and teach him?

2. After Will tells Buck what he is going to do, what does Buck tell Will about his plan to follow The Rules in Chapter Two? How does he compare Will to Shawn?

3. What does Will think Buck is thinking about him in Chapter Two? What does Will assert about himself to the reader in response?

4. How does Shawn come to teach Will The Rules as explained in Chapter Three? What does Will feel after he is taught the Rules?

5. Why does Will look to Buck for help in Chapter Three? What does Buck do?

6. What happens on the day of the picture that Dani shows to Will in Chapter Three?

7. What does Will describe as a “strange thing” in the beginning of Chapter Two? What does he call this?

8. Who gets on the elevator in Chapter Three? How do Will and the new person first interact?

9. What is the picture of at the beginning of Chapter One? What does this image illustrate for the reader?

10. What does Will think of when a man gets on the elevator in Chapter Two and starts looking at Will when Will is not looking?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In Chapter One, Will takes Shawn’s gun and alludes to a little brother holding his big brother’s hands, in a sense, walking in his footsteps. In Chapter Five, Mikey Holloman tells his story of going to shoot his older brother’s killer in words and actions similar to Will’s choosing to avenge Shawn. In place of actual relationships with male role models, how are young boys shown following after their role models paths? Find at least three textual examples to explore how the novel shows younger generations taking after older generations.

Essay Topic 2

Generational patterns are repeated in Long Way Down. Characters are mirrors of one another. Literary devices using mirroring, such as a mise en abyme and repetition are used. At the end Chapter Six, after Frick is done speaking, Will looks into the elevator and sees only himself. What do you make of this mirroring on a narrative and stylistic level? What does it say about the content of the novel and the novel's eventual message? Write an argument pulling from at least two of the examples above in addition to two other examples from the novel of your choosing.

Essay Topic 3

By the end of the novel, what Will knows about his father and brother is changed. His father is not like he imagined, and his brother has broken rule number one. Has Will changed? Why or why not? How has his character been influenced by the events of the novel? Pull at least three examples from the novel to show how either he has changed or stayed the same in spite of interacting with the other characters.

(see the answer keys)

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