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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. Why does Sarah call Jo when Bethie needs an abortion?

2. What is set to happen the night Bethie comes to Connecticut to visit Jo in Part IV?

3. Where does Bethie go for something to eat after her friend's wedding in 1974?

4. Who encourages Jo to take up fitness training as a business?

5. Where is Dave working when Bethie comes to visit Jo in Part IV?

Short Essay Questions

1. What do many of Jo's neighbors say during Bethie's consciousness-raising exercise about their lives in Part IV?

2. What big life change does Bethie make shortly after her abortion?

3. What is Bethie's impression of Jo's state of mind when she visits her in Connecticut?

4. Who does Bethie meet from her past that changes her life in Part IV, and how does she meet him?

5. In Part III, how does Sarah act towards Bethie?

6. Why does Sarah send Jo a telegram telling her to come home immediately just as Jo starts her trip abroad?

7. What does Jo find in Shelley's closet that prompts a huge fight between them?

8. What kinds of difficulties does Jo experience with her youngest daughter Lila?

9. In Part III, how does Bethie make a living?

10. What are Shelley and Jo supposed to do after graduation?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How do the struggles of Jo's three daughters, Kim, Melissa, and Lila, reflect and embody some of the same problems she, Bethie, and even their mother Sarah encountered as women decades earlier? Write an essay explaining your answers, citing specific references to the text to help support your arguments.

Essay Topic 2

Why does Jo end up going to Shelley's wedding, and how does her experience there change the course of her life forever? Why does Jo finally agree to marry a man? Write an essay explaining your answers.

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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