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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 alerts the girls in the bathroom that something is wrong with Caroline in Part Seven?

2. In Part Eight, Caroline gets her GED. Which is the best description of what this is?

3. How does Caroline describe Susan's appearance, on page 168?

4. What fact does the reader learn about Caroline toward the end of Part Six?

5. What is the name of the road that Caroline lives on in Part Eight?

Short Essay Questions

1. In what sense are Susan and Father similar?

2. What education has Caroline received since returning to Oregon?

3. What does Caroline do after she finds Father, and why?

4. What is ironic about the feeling Caroline shares about grocery shopping in the beginning of Part Six?

5. What natural feature do Caroline and Father stumble across, and how does it save them?

6. When Caroline is finally alone in the cave, watching the fire, what does she finally allow herself to think about?

7. What does the condition of Caroline's feet tell the reader about her?

8. When Paul falls from the sled and Caroline comes up the hill to find him, what does she see, and what does Susan tell her is happening?

9. Where does Caroline go after she leaves the cave?

10. What features of Paul's does Caroline notice and find unusual?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay that examines the physical closeness of Father and Caroline. Read carefully the passages about their sleeping and showering practices, Caroline's feelings about how her body is changing, her interest in the young couple she sees on the water tower, and so on. Use evidence from these passages to make and defend a claim about the nature of Father and Caroline's physical closeness and its impacts on Caroline.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay that makes and defends a claim about the symbolic value of the toy horse, Randy, in My Abandonment. Be sure to support your ideas with textual evidence.

Essay Topic 3

One of the thematic motifs in My Abandonment is the difference between appearances and reality. Write an essay that explores how Father and Caroline's characters and the events of the story reveal the book's preoccupation with the difference between the way things seem and the way they really are. Offer textual support for your claims, and if you use outside sources, be sure to credit them in MLA format.

(see the answer keys)

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