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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 is Hazel working on in Chapter 14?

2. When Miriam hears the news in Chapter 18, what is she in line to buy?

3. In Chapter 13, how old is Hazel?

4. In Chapter 16, how many months pregnant is Hazel?

5. In Chapter 20, what is the name of Joan's history teacher?

Short Essay Questions

1. When did Miriam graduate from nursing school, and what was her graduation ceremony like?

2. What are August, Miriam, and Joan doing in Chapter 24, when the doorbell rings after two in the morning, and who do they find at the door?

3. How did Hazel's father die?

4. Why does Joan go to Sunday Mass?

5. How does Myron propose to Hazel and how does she respond?

6. What flood has affected Memphis in 1937?

7. What does Miss Dawn tell Joan when Joan tells her about applying to art school in London?

8. What role does Hazel play in her mother's business?

9. Why does August want the children walked to school by armed gun members in Chapter 15?

10. What was Derek's trial like?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Poverty and crime are endemic in the North Memphis neighborhood where the Norths live. How do poverty and crime affect the Norths and the neighborhood where they live?

Essay Topic 2

An allusion is a figure of speech that does not directly refer to a person, place, or thing. What are some allusions in Memphis: A Novel? Why might it be difficult to decipher an allusion just by the context of a passage in a book? How do the allusions Stringfellow uses help readers’ understanding of characters or concepts?

Essay Topic 3

Joan is a girl of ten at the beginning of Memphis: A Novel and a young lady preparing for college at the end of the book. How do the events in the book help Joan mature and grow in the novel? What role does learning to forgive have in her growth?

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