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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. Which part of the news about the family finances shocks Mr. Tulliver the most when he first regains his senses after the accident?

2. Why is it particularly bad timing for Mr. Tulliver to lose the lawsuit?

3. What attribute do all the Dodson sisters have in common?

4. What does the narrator think about the system of sending boys to study with independent schoolmasters, such as Mr. Stelling?

5. Why does Mrs. Glegg decide to let Mr. Tulliver keep the money a while longer?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why is Mr. Tulliver skeptical about Tom's plan to earn money by trading, in order to pay off the family debts?

2. Why does Maggie not choose to stay with the gypsies once she finds them?

3. Why does Tom try to convince Philip to come and see the sword demonstration?

4. How does staying up late and talking to Lucy, during her first evening at Lucy's house, help Maggie to feel better?

5. How does Maggie feel when Philip declares his love for her?

6. Why do you think that Tom says he does not trust Maggie when it comes to Philip Wakem? Why does Maggie say that his lack of trust is unfair?

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

8. What do you think horrifies Tom the most about Maggie meeting Philip, the fact that Philip is a hunchback, or that he is the son of Mr. Wakem? Why?

9. Why does Maggie refuse the book that Philip tries to offer her when she runs into him, after the family goes bankrupt?

10. "Without the beauty, we are apt to call simplicity awkwardness," writes George Eliot in chapter nine. Who is she referring to? Why does she make this comment?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The reader first glimpses the narrator in Chapter One, when the narrator uses the word "I" and talks about having dozed off dreaming about the mill and about the afternoon when the Tullivers have their discussion (the discussion that is then related in Chapter Two). Who do you think the narrator is? Why does the narrator choose to tell this story?

Essay Topic 2

Why do you think the family members in The Mill on the Floss criticize each other so much? Is their criticism a way of hiding an underlying affection? Or is the criticism more sincere? Take a position on this point and defend it using examples from The Mill on the Floss.

Essay Topic 3

Do you think that Maggie is better off ending up with Philip, with Stephen, or with neither? Defend your perspective. Be sure to include evidence from The Mill on the Floss to support your case.

(see the answer keys)

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