View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What happens to Bethie when she gets separated from her friends at the music festival in Part II?

2. Where does Jo go to college?

3. Who does Bethie meet who gives her her first drugs in Part II?

4. What does Bethie do to try to control her weight gain in Part I?

5. What record does Shelley choose to play in Jo's dorm room in Part II?

Short Essay Questions

1. How do Sarah's, Bethie's, and Jo's lives change when their father Ken unexpectedly dies?

2. How does Jo react when Lynnette tells her about her plans to have sex with her boyfriend for the first time?

3. What does Jo's father do when she decides to run away from home in Part I?

4. Why does Sarah tell Jo and Bethie that Mel refused to give their father a loan some years before their father died?

5. What kinds of protests does Jo attend in college, and what causes does she care most about?

6. In Part I, what happens that makes Jo want to run away from home?

7. How does Sarah treat Jo and Bethie differently when they are little girls?

8. How does Bethie control her weight in Part II, once she gets to college?

9. What does Bethie try for the first time when she visits Jo at college in Part II?

10. What does Bethie remember about being Esther in the Hebrew School play when she was 11?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Sarah Kaufman views Bethie as her "good" girl, and she holds high hopes for Bethie's eventual marriage; Sarah seems to see her other daughter Jo as a lost cause and even goes so far as to call her "unnatural." But by Part III, when Jo is married with children and Bethie is drifting around the country and the world, the sisters have switched places in their mother's eyes. Write an essay exploring how Bethie's and Jo's relationships with Sarah change over the course of the novel, citing specific references to the text to help support your answers.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay analyzing Weiner's treatment of the theme of redemption, especially as she explores it through Jo's and Bethie's characters.

Essay Topic 3

In Part II, why is Jo so hesitant to become romantically involved with Shelley or to even believe that Shelley might be interested in her at first? Write an essay explaining your answers, citing specific references to the text to help support your arguments.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 769 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample