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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 boy and girl encounter a man on a tractor while they are lost, the boy recognizes the man's name from what document?
(a) A court summons.
(b) A birth certificate.
(c) A gravestone.
(d) A map.

2. In what stage of life was the boy when his biological mother died?
(a) Prepubescence.
(b) Early childhood.
(c) Adolescence.
(d) Infancy.

3. The coyote in Elegies for Lost Children begins with how many children under his supervision on their way to the United States?
(a) 6.
(b) 7.
(c) 4.
(d) 11.

4. What word spoken by the girl does the boy use as an example of the girl's intermittent brilliance?
(a) Future.
(b) Relatively.
(c) Haunted.
(d) Fret.

5. When the boy describes eating "a real breakfast in a diner" (218) the reader is meant to recognize which location that was also described earlier in the narrative by the woman?
(a) Aroma Cafe.
(b) Juliet Cafe.
(c) Billie's Cafe.
(d) Dixie's Cafe.

Short Answer Questions

1. In a conversation with the boy, the woman claims that which book is "about human nature" (161)?

2. The woman claims that fear "in the daytime, under the sun" (157) belongs to whom?

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

4. What term does the girl use to refer to the boy after he describes how an echo works?

5. 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?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. In what way does the motif of music enter the part of the narrative when the boy and girl enter a diner to get some water?

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

4. How does the boy plan to find the way to the town of Lordsburg and what does he plan to do once he and the girl reach Lordsburg?

5. How does the fictional author of Elegies for Lost Children demonstrate the way in which the "man in charge" (164) despises being asked questions?

6. 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)?

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

8. Discuss how the boy's reunion with the girl comes about after their separation and include discussion of the boy's reaction to their reunion.

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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