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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 Captain Kidd end his readings in Chapter 7 with?

2. What does the Captain say he was nervous about, for the first two days with Johanna?

3. What does Captain Kidd not have with him, when the cavalry Captain asks for it in Chapter 5?

4. What does Captain Kidd do before he falls asleep at the end of Chapter 4?

5. Why does Captain Kidd realize he has not offered his attentions to Mrs. Gannet, these past few years?

Short Essay Questions

1. What arrangements does Captain Kidd for Johanna make when he arrives in Dallas?

2. How does the Miss Dillon say that Johanna resembles the doll she gives her?

3. How does Johanna fare once Captain Kidd starts teaching her English?

4. Why does Captain Kidd show Johanna the weapons he carries, and what is her response?

5. How did Britt Johnson come to be responsible for Johanna?

6. What does Britt Johnson give Captain Kidd when he is about to leave from Wichita Falls?

7. How does the narrator characterize the political situation in Texas while Captain Kidd and Johanna are making their trip?

8. What arrangements is Captain Kidd making in his letter to his daughters?

9. Who are Simon and Doris, and how do they help Captain Kidd with Johanna?

10. What was it that made Captain Kidd want to be a news reader?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Identify the most important plot points in News of the World. What is at stake in each of these moments? What possibilities do these moments present, and how are those possibilities channeled into specific actions or events? How does the plot chart its course among other alternative or possible plots?

Essay Topic 2

When is News of the World most itself? What is its characteristic passage, or moment? What makes that moment or passage the most representative of the book as a whole? Are there any places where the book seems to depart from its typical self, as if to become a different book?

Essay Topic 3

Write an evaluative review of News of the World. What is this book’s place in our culture? Who will find this book most useful? What are its uses? What are its limitations?

(see the answer keys)

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