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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What reason does the narrator give for the casual laborer murdering an old widower?
(a) The widower would not give the laborer a raise.
(b) The laborer was dismissed without pay.
(c) The laborer wanted the old man's antique clocks.
(d) The old man was a callous employer.

2. How are the people in the narrator's story said to be living at the start of her tale?
(a) Like peas in a pod.
(b) In eternal despair.
(c) Happily ever after.
(d) Carefree and fancy free.

3. How was the plaque meant to indicate that the property owner was not racist?
(a) The man was masked so you could not tell if he was Black or white.
(b) It contained a peace sign.
(c) It said "All Are Welcome."
(d) It depicted a Black hand holding a white hand.

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

5. What adjective is used to describe the gardener in the narrator's tale?
(a) Attentive.
(b) Itinerant.
(c) Patient.
(d) Elegant.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the narrator do when she is unable to go back to sleep?

2. What were the Chopi and Tsonga people the narrator says may have made the wooden instrument she describes when discussing her heart beating?

3. Who is said to have offered a warning to the man and woman when they started their life together?

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

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

Short Essay Questions

1. Why is the narrator unable to sleep at the start of the story?

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

3. 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?

4. After the riots outside the city subsided, what crimes took place in the suburbs?

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

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

7. How is the man's mother described and what warning did she give her son and his wife as they start their life together?

8. 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).

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

10. 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?

(see the answer keys)

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