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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 technique is used when David hears the sound of a man moaning and he says "with my cold ear I followed it" (2)?

2. In "Get Me Some Medicine," what reason does Fellis give David for dropping out of college?

3. In "The Blessing Tobacco," where do the tribal police find David's grandmother?

4. In "In a Jar," why does David struggle to remember the details of the move to the reservation?

5. In "Food for the Common Cold," who is the first person to notice the strange smell in David's mother's house?

Short Essay Questions

1. What irritates David about the questions the hospital staff keeps asking him while he is waiting for Fellis in "In a Field of Stray Caterpillars"?

2. In "The Blessing Tobacco," when David is feeling sick, how does Paige demonstrate her concern and affection?

3. In "Burn," what does Fellis asks David to do when he goes back to town to get marijuana, beer, and chips, and why does Fellis ask David to do this?

4. In "Get Me Some Medicine," what details demonstrate that David's friendship with Fellis does not blind David to Fellis's faults?

5. In "Burn," why was David's first trip into town to get marijuana unsuccessful?

6. In "Food for the Common Cold," what is the difference between the way the adult narrator David and the child David in the story see the mood in the household during the week that Frick is gone?

7. In "Get Me Some Medicine," which behaviors of Fellis's indicate that he has a habit of blaming others for his problems?

8. How does David discover the jar in "In a Jar"?

9. In "Burn," what does the reservation doctor tell David he is ineligible for, and what does David see this as an example of?

10. In "Food for the Common Cold," what does David do after the argument between Frick and his mother about the headstone?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the significance of the questions David keeps asking himself throughout "Night of the Living Rez"? How is the precise wording of his questions important, including the way this wording shifts during the story? How do these questions indicate the pivotal role this story plays in the collection's overall structure? Write an essay that analyzes the significance of David's repeated questions in "Night of the Living Rez" and that links these questions to the function of this story in the overall collection. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the collection, including quoted evidence focused on the diction David employs in "Night of the Living Rez." Cite all quoted evidence in MLA format.

Essay Topic 2

Does the whiteness of the snow and ice in "Burn" matter? Is this story indicting the conditions on the reservation that result from White interference in Native life? Or does it matter more that the snow is a cold, frozen obstacle--a static "trap" that communicates something about the way Natives can be "frozen" and "trapped" in old traditions and ways of thinking? Now that you have read the entire collection, which interpretation of the snow in "Burn" seems most correct to you? Write an essay in which you take and defend a position about what the snow represents. You can choose either interpretation--or both--to defend, as long as your argument is thoroughly supported with evidence from "Burn" and from at least two other stories in the collection. Cite any quoted material in MLA format.

Essay Topic 3

In interviews, Talty has said that what drives and connects the stories in this collection is the question "What happened to David"? How does the structure of this collection create suspense by presenting this question and then gradually offering clues? What would the collection lose by presenting the stories chronologically? Write an essay in which you analyze the structure of Night of the Living Rez, showing how the ordering of stories creates tension by juxtaposing two contrasting versions of David: the young David who is easy to empathize with and the older David whose dissolution puzzles and disturbs the reader. Support your analysis with evidence drawn from throughout the collection, citing any quoted evidence in MLA format.

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