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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 kind of jewelry does Trethewey wear in the picture of herself and her mother the year they left Mississippi?

2. What word did Trethewey's father use to refer to her in one of his poems?

3. Which aunt's and uncle's house was separated from Trethewey's by the highway?

4. What popular television show had Trethewey watched all summer in 1973?

5. What years did Trethewey try to forget as much about as she could?

Short Essay Questions

1. What pain did Trethewey's grandmother describe long after Gwendolyn had died?

2. What was Trethewey's last image of her mother while her mother was living?

3. Why did Trethewey's father encourage her to become a writer?

4. What nightmare did Trethewey have shortly after moving to Atlanta?

5. Why did the Ku Klux Klan burn a cross in the driveway of Trethewey's grandmother's house in the 1960s?

6. Why did Gwendolyn's paternal grandmother, Narcissus, dislike Gwendolyn's mother?

7. What occasion did Trethewey's birth also mark in 1966?

8. Why did Trethewey's father want to take her and her mother to Mexico in the 1960s?

9. What did Trethewey remember most clearly about leaving Mississippi for Atlanta in 1972?

10. Why did Gwendolyn not see her father after about age 16?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What happened to the cassette tape Trethewey unexpectedly found after Gwendolyn's murder that contained her mother's voice? How did Trethewey explain her choice to deliberately try to forget some of her memories from growing up? Write an essay explaining your answers.

Essay Topic 2

How did Trethewey connect her recurring dreams about her mother and her own near-drowning experience as a child? Write an essay explaining your answers.

Essay Topic 3

Which extended family members of Trethewey's were most influential in her early life and upbringing, and why? Write an essay explaining your answers.

(see the answer keys)

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