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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 does Craig do for a living?

2. What has Vanessa’s mother taken from her room following her expulsion from Browick?

3. According to Vanessa on page 270, she has become a voracious consumer of what type of stories?

4. How does Strane’s voice sound when he calls Vanessa on page 187?

5. What has Vanessa been writing for three years, as revealed on page 281?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Vanessa reveal to Henry Plough regarding her time at Browick? What connection to Browick does Plough reveal?

2. Why does Vanessa judge Henry Plough to be untrustworthy?

3. Why does Strane send Vanessa a packet of documents? Of what is he trying to remind her, as he explains on page 327? What does he want to achieve?

4. What happens during the interaction between Strane and Plough?

5. How does Strane describe the student accusing him of assault on page 306?

6. How does Vanessa’s relationship with Strane change after her graduation from college? To what can the reader attribute such change?

7. What is Vanessa’s opinion of her teenage self? How does Ruby see a teenage Vanessa, as she explains on page 265?

8. What happens during Vanessa’s conversation with Taylor on page 313?

9. Who is Bridget? Describe her relationship with Vanessa.

10. What does Vanessa learn from Jenny in the spring of 2002?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay analyzing how the author uses characters and behaviors to develop and strengthen the murky issue of consent.

Essay Topic 2

While teaching a lesson on Longfellow, Strane remarks that “the world is made of endlessly intersecting stories, each one valid and true” (21). How does the novel support or refute this claim?

Essay Topic 3

How does My Dark Vanessa illustrate the theme of shame and secrecy? Use textual evidence to support your analysis.

(see the answer keys)

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