View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What would Shawn try to have Will remember about their dad as told in Chapter Five?

2. What does Will think about the bullets in the gun in Chapter Five?

3. Why had Frick shot Buck as said in Chapter Six?

4. What does Will feel when he realizes that his dad had killed the wrong guy?

5. Who was Buck’s stepdad as said in Chapter Six?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who gets on the elevator in Chapter Five? What do the new person and Will do? How does Will feel?

2. How does Will feel realizing his father shot the wrong guy as told in Chapter Five? How had he imagined his father?

3. According to Chapter Six, why was Shawn upset as he tells to Buck? What does Buck do to comfort him?

4. What are the stories Shawn had told Will about their dad in Chapter Five? What does Will remember about these stories?

5. Who finishes the scene for Will in Chapter Four? What does Will feel when he echoes the ending?

6. What does Uncle Mark start doing to get a new video camera in Chapter Four? Why does he do this?

7. How is Buck two-sided, as said in Chapter Six? What do people in the neighborhood say about him?

8. What happened after Buck had been killed as said in Chapter Six? What had Shawn gone to do?

9. How does Frick justify his killing Buck in Chapter Six? How do the other men in the elevator respond?

10. What did Will’s mom tell Will about why his dad had died as told in Chapter Five? What had Will thought about this as a kid?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Long Way Down uses and reinterprets several metaphors throughout the book. Choose one of the metaphors or figures of language used in Long Way Down (such a middle drawer). Find and write three instances of how the metaphor is used and changed or interpreted in new ways throughout the novel. What is the first definition of the word? What is the meaning of the word by the end of the novel? Finally, why is this metaphor used over and over? What is the purpose of the novel in using the same figurative language over and over?

Essay Topic 2

When Frick explains why he shot Buck, he justifies this by saying he is just earning his stripes, and the men around him respond by nodding and saying there is no judgement (275). Why do they accept what he says? Why are they not mad? How is their acceptance a part of the community norms? How is their acceptance connected to The Rules? Connect this example to one other instance in the novel of acceptance of circumstances. Use this to develop a claim about why acceptance exists in this way for the community as shown by the novel.

Essay Topic 3

Look at Will’s Random Thought No. 4 in Chapter Five, where he thinks about kids at playgrounds standing on their father’s feet and trusting him to guide them (22). How is this metaphor connected to ideas of fatherhood in the novel? What is the representation and role of fatherhood as said in Long Way Down? How is this representation specifically shaped by the community? Write an argumentative response for what you think the definition of fatherhood in the novel is and connect it to at least three textual examples.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,161 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample