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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. When the woman finds fault with the boy's answer about what he would do if he and the girl became lost, what does she say is the right answer?
(a) Sit down and remain still.
(b) Pray.
(c) Find the North Star and start walking toward it.
(d) Look for a road.

2. On what type of document does the boy draw the route he and the girl plan to take as they set out in search of lost people?
(a) A map.
(b) A parking ticket.
(c) A newspaper clipping.
(d) A court summons.

3. How many children does the cashier say will be deported from an airport near Roswell the following day?
(a) Thousands.
(b) Hundreds.
(c) Scores.
(d) Dozens.

4. When the woman agrees to read to the boy from Elegies for Lost Children, how many chapters does she agree to read aloud?
(a) 2.
(b) 4.
(c) 3.
(d) 1.

5. The coyote threatens the children under his supervision with violence after one of children commits what transgression?
(a) Falls behind.
(b) Cries.
(c) Lies.
(d) Asks a question.

Short Answer Questions

1. In what way does the boy document his and the girl's encounter with the rancher on the tractor?

2. Once the family has decided to travel toward the airport near Roswell, for how many weeks have they been driving?

3. The man tells the woman that after the death of the boy's biological mother, he frequently struggled with what?

4. What object does the woman attack in anger when she sees the immigration officers take a certain action when the plane starts to move?

5. What is NOT something to which the woman has been accustomed within the confines of the car during the road trip?

Short Essay Questions

1. What simile does the boy use to describe his relationship with the woman's mother?

2. What does the airplane symbolize within the Virginia Woolf epigraph at the start of Family Soundscapes: "Box IV"?

3. For what length of time has the family been driving when the boy asks the woman to play a David Bowie song in the car?

4. Which section of the fifth elegy causes the woman to stop reading to the boy?

5. In what habit does the girl often engage and what does she call her habit?

6. What example does the boy give when he claims that the girl is "sometimes really smart" (196)?

7. What major change in narration takes place at the start of the part called Reenactment?

8. What does the reader learn by the end of Part I about the woman's own childhood?

9. What is the woman's philosophy about answering the questions of the boy and girl?

10. What sight in the backseat causes the woman to relent and to grant the boy's request to play "Space Oddity" again after the "fifth or sixth time" (156)?

(see the answer keys)

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