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 type of business do the Meekers operate?

2. What does Tim sense about his father?

3. What does Tim do in secret that he knows his father would not approve of?

4. What has Sam come home to get?

5. In what month of the year does the novel begin?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the author use religion as a theme in this book?

2. What is Father's position about Sam's wanting to go to war?

3. How is the author showing how Tim is more like Sam than he might want to think?

4. How does the author show the reality of war for Tim and Father in Chapter 7?

5. Explain the uncertainty of war experienced by the people in Redding.

6. What is the crisis point for Tim and what choice does he face regarding the gun?

7. How does the threat of war finally arrive in Redding?

8. What is the significance of obedience in the novel?

9. How do Father and Tim interact now that Sam is gone?

10. In addition to uncertainty, how is powerlessness an important element in what the people of Redding are experiencing?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Father cannot understand the need to go to war for a few taxes while Sam cannot understand his not wanting complete independence from England. Name some of the taxes and restrictions which precipitated the American Revolution and why the colonists rebelled against them.

Essay Topic 2

Explain the irony of Sam's being arrested and eventually killed for being a cattle thief.

Essay Topic 3

Explain Tim's philosophy of life in 1826, 50 years after the Revolutionary War. Is he bitter? Is he resigned? What was the purpose of his life? Does he think the sacrifices were warranted for what he has?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 939 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample