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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 does Lily want to give Adam?

2. What does Jesse say to the Mercy farmhands?

3. What do Nate and Ben discuss with Willa?

4. What has Willa shot?

5. What does Tess insist upon when Willa returns after riding to the woods?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Willa realize when her sisters tell her they are staying after Pickles was murdered?

2. What does the will say about the ranch?

3. What does Willa think is the reason her father set the will up as he did?

4. What does the killer do after the New Year's Eve party?

5. With whom is Tess speaking on the phone at the wake, what does she tell the person, and what is Tess's intent concerning after the funeral?

6. What is found at the foot of Willa's porch after the New Year's Eve party is over? What is done about it?

7. What does Ben asks Willa to do at the New Year's Eve party, what is her response, and what do the two of them think of Adam and Lily?

8. What do Nate, Adam and Ben do after the party and the discovery outside?

9. Where does Tess go after the funeral, who is her mother, and what is her mother like? Why did her mother marry her father?

10. What does Tess see at the corral that bothers her, what does she do, who takes her in the house, and what does he say to her?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss one of the following:

1. Thoroughly analyze how the setting informs the plot in Montana Sky.

2. Trace and analyze one major theme of Montana Sky. How is the theme represented by symbolism? By the characters' behaviors? By the action?

3. Trace and analyze two secondary themes of Montana Sky. How are the themes represented by symbolism? By the characters' behaviors? By the action?

Essay Topic 2

Many novels, and perhaps a majority, of novels ends on a happy note. Discuss the following:

1. Why do you think many (most?) people want what they perceive as a happy or good ending to a novel? Explain your opinion. Do you? Why or why not?

2. What are three reasons to read fiction? Discuss each one in light of Montana Sky and whether or not it fulfills all three, two or one of the reasons you mention. Give examples as to why Montana Sky is or is not successful in fulfilling the reasons you discuss.

3. Do you think reading solely for entertainment is as good a reason to read as any other? Why or why not? Can any work of fiction or non-fiction, no matter how poorly written, enlighten, teach, stimulate thought? Why or why not?

Essay Topic 3

Montana Sky is considered a romance/mystery, a sub-genre of fiction. Discuss the following:

1. Define genre and then specifically romance/mystery.

2. What do you think is the difference between a romance novel and a romance/mystery?

3. Many in the world of academe do not see mystery as a serious genre, that its primary purpose is entertainment and not "worthy" of being studied by serious students of literature. Respond to that idea.

(see the answer keys)

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