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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. To whom does Tom go for advice about getting a job?

2. What does the narrator say is the prime moral value of the Dodsons?

3. What is Mr. Tulliver's main regret about his children?

4. Why does Philip and Tom's relationship become strained?

5. Why does Mr. Wakem ask Mr. Tulliver to run the mill?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why is Mr. Deane, at first, so unwilling to help Tom after Mr. Tulliver's accident?

2. How does Mrs. Moss cause Mr. Tulliver to soften and become milder in his feelings toward her family?

3. Describe Maggie's character, based on her behavior during her childhood.

4. The title of Book Five, last chapter, Chapter Seven, "A Day of Reckoning," has a double meaning. What is it?

5. Why are Maggie and Philip a good match for each other?

6. What does Maggie think of Philip when she first meets him?

7. Why do you think that Maggie's mother and aunts pull together to help her upon her return from her boat trip with Stephen?

8. The day that Tom comes home from school for the first time, what events occur that foreshadow the flood at the end of the book?

9. Do you think that Tom has a fairly flexible, tolerant nature, or is he more stubborn and rigid? Explain your answer in terms of Tom's reaction to Lucy's attempts to peacemaker between him and Philip Wakem on Maggie's behalf.

10. What is Stephen Guest looking for in a wife? What qualities does he see in Lucy that appeal to him?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Siblings often do not get along. In your opinion, is the relationship between Maggie and Tom typical of siblings, or do they have a stormier relationship than most? Analyze Maggie and Tom's relationship, arguing that it is or is not typical.

Essay Topic 2

George Eliot depicts Maggie as much more able, intellectually, than her brother Tom. Some critics read The Mill on the Floss as an early feminist novel, calling for the full education of women and for women's equality. Socially conservative critics, however, have a different perspective on the novel, and view it as making an argument for better educating women in order to make them more effective within the family. Choose a critical perspective that makes the most sense to you, based on your own background and beliefs. Use examples from The Mill on the Floss to make a feminist argument for the emancipation of women, or to make a socially conservative argument for full education of women on behalf of their role in the family.

Essay Topic 3

Write a paper analyzing the plot development in The Mill on the Floss. What do you feel is the climax of the plot? How does Eliot build tension prior to that point? How does she wind the book down after the climax?

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