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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What begins to happen once the riots in the city are suppressed?
(a) People in the city move to the suburbs.
(b) People in the suburbs become less fearful.
(c) People in the suburbs move to the city.
(d) Burglaries in the suburbs increase.

2. What does the narrator describe as "finely tuned" in the night?
(a) Machinery.
(b) Her piano.
(c) One's senses.
(d) The universe.

3. What is the narrator's house built atop?
(a) Stilts.
(b) A garbage dump.
(c) Undermined ground.
(d) Burial grounds.

4. Who lives in the home the narrator describes at the start of her story?
(a) A man, and a woman and their son.
(b) An old woman and her adult son.
(c) A father and his son.
(d) A single mother and her child.

5. What are the man and woman warned against doing as they start their lives together?
(a) Taken anyone in off the street.
(b) Living in the suburbs.
(c) Getting a pool.
(d) Having a child.

6. Where were the riots said to be in the tale the narrator tells herself?
(a) In a far away land.
(b) In another country.
(c) In her mind.
(d) In the city.

7. Who is said to have offered a warning to the man and woman when they started their life together?
(a) The man's mother.
(b) The woman's father.
(c) The neighbors.
(d) The town councilor.

8. What is the man's mother called in the narrator's tale?
(a) The fairy godmother.
(b) The wicked witch.
(c) The good witch.
(d) The wise old witch.

9. Who had recommended the gardener to the man and his wife?
(a) Neighbors.
(b) The woman's sister.
(c) The man's mother.
(d) The child's teacher.

10. What woke the narrator in the night at the start of the story?
(a) The phone ringing.
(b) A rainstorm.
(c) Her husband.
(d) A creaking sound in her house.

11. What does the husband do to assuage his wife's fears that people from the city might intrude on their home in the suburbs?
(a) He has electronically-controlled gates installed.
(b) He adds padlocks to their doors.
(c) He buys them a house in the country.
(d) He buys her a gun.

12. Where does the story the narrator tells herself take place?
(a) A house in the country.
(b) A house in the suburbs.
(c) An apartment in the city.
(d) A condo by the ocean.

13. What were the Chopi and Tsonga people the narrator says may have made the wooden instrument she describes when discussing her heart beating?
(a) Burglars.
(b) Farmers.
(c) Musicians.
(d) Migrant miners.

14. Why did the neighborhood alarms often go unanswered after many had them installed?
(a) They could not tell whose house it was coming from.
(b) Pets were setting them off.
(c) They were often on vacation.
(d) Kids would set them off for fun.

15. What does the narrator realize is the reason for the creaking sound in her house?
(a) Her housing shifting.
(b) An intruder.
(c) Her child.
(d) Her cat.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did thieves do to "somebody's trusted housemaid" (26) after the city riots were suppressed?

2. After the incident with a neighbor's housemaid, what did the man and woman's housemaid beg them to do?

3. What pets does the family in the narrator's story have at home?

4. What does someone tell the narrator she should write for an upcoming anthology?

5. What type of people are said to live in the city in the tale the narrator tells herself?

(see the answer keys)

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