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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 of the following sports does Jo play in high school?

2. Who is Jo's best friend's boyfriend in high school?

3. What does Jo tell Bethie about how Bethie looks the last time they see each other before Jo goes on her trip abroad?

4. What does Bethie think of Devon as in Part II?

5. Who is Bethie's boyfriend in Part II?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why is Jo so upset when she returns from Lynnette's on Thanksgiving Day in Part II?

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

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

4. What starts happening to Bethie when she goes to her Uncle Mel's house every week?

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

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

7. When Jo is a young child and standing outside the Kaufman's new home on Alhambra Street for the first time, what makes Sarah so angry?

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

9. How does Dev treat Bethie in Part II?

10. What does Bethie think of the farm they stop at with Dev and their friends on the way to Newport?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How does Weiner's choice to alternate between the viewpoints of Bethie and Jo throughout the novel affect the reader's experience of the novel? Write an essay explaining your answers.

Essay Topic 2

In Part III, how do Bethie's rape and subsequent abortion affect her views of men and of women's oppression? Write an essay explaining your answers, citing specific references to the text to help support your arguments.

Essay Topic 3

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.

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