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

2. What town do Father and Caroline come into when they are out of the mountains?

3. Whom does Caroline refer to as "the Outlaws" (215)?

4. What is unusual about Paul's speech?

5. In what city does Part Seven take place?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. Once Caroline has returned to the place where Father held her captive after abducting her, how does she feel about Father and the past four years?

4. When they are on the bus, what important message does Caroline try to tell Father, and how does he react?

5. What does Father tell Caroline about traveling south, and what actually happens when they go south?

6. What does the reader learn has happened to one of Caroline's toes?

7. How does Caroline support herself in Part Eight?

8. What is Caroline doing with her journal and Father's notebook?

9. Why does Caroline feel that Father is both missing and not missing?

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

Peter Rock has said in interviews that no other narrative voice would work for this story other than Caroline's. Write an essay that examines how Caroline's narrative voice supports the novel's theme. Be sure to support your ideas with evidence from the text.

Essay Topic 2

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 3

Write an essay that explicates the final four paragraphs of My Abandonment. Explain what Caroline literally means, how this passage functions on a figurative level, and what the passage adds to the book's overall meaning. Support your claims with textual evidence, at least some of which should be quoted.

(see the answer keys)

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