View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. According to the narrator's tale, under what conditions were people who lived in the city allowed in the suburbs?
(a) As nannies and drivers.
(b) As teachers and secretaries.
(c) As doctors and lawyers.
(d) As housemaids and gardeners.

2. What is it said the house and swimming pool and car could not be insured against?
(a) Theft.
(b) Flooding.
(c) Fire.
(d) Riot damage.

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

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

5. What adjective is used to describe the housemaid in the narrator's tale?
(a) Trustworthy.
(b) Itinerant.
(c) Eccentric.
(d) Loquacious.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the husband do to assuage his wife's fears that people from the city might intrude on their home in the suburbs?

2. What did the old widower who was murdered have to protect him?

3. What does the wife worry the people from the city might come to their home and do some day?

4. What reason does the narrator give for the casual laborer murdering an old widower?

5. Why did the neighborhood alarms often go unanswered after many had them installed?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the man have installed in their house to ease his wife's fears and what does the boy do with them?

2. What does the narrator do when she is an able to fall back to sleep at the start of the story?

3. At the start of "Once Upon a Time," what does the narrator say someone wrote and asked her to do, and how does she feel about this request?

4. What does the narrator realize is the cause of the creaking she hears in her home at the start of the story?

5. What recent crimes does the narrator describe at the start of the story?

6. How does the husband try to assuage his wife's fears when she worries people from the cities will tear off their warning sign and "open the gates and stream in" (26).

7. What were the man and woman unable to insure their house against, and why did the man tell his wife they need not worry about that?

8. Despite having the same fears of intruders as other people, what precautions does the narrator say she does not take in her home?

9. Where does the story the narrator tells herself take palce and who is in the story?

10. What fears did the man and woman's trusted housemaid begin to have, and what did they do in response to her fears?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 882 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample