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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 does the narrator do when she is unable to go back to sleep?
(a) She tells herself a story.
(b) She reads a book.
(c) She eats a sandwich.
(d) She writes a letter.

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

3. What did thieves do to "somebody's trusted housemaid" (26) after the city riots were suppressed?
(a) Made her tell them where all the family jewelry was.
(b) Kidnapped her.
(c) Tied her up and shut her in a cupboard.
(d) Stabbed her.

4. Who is the author of "Once Upon a Time"?
(a) Nadia Golen.
(b) Nancy Greer.
(c) Grace Newsom.
(d) Nadine Gordimer.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. According to the narrator's tale, who were being shot by the police in the city?

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. What did "a certain novelist" say every writer "ought to write at least once" (23)?

4. How are the people in the narrator's story said to be living at the start of her tale?

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

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What precautions do the man and woman take against theft or natural disasters when they first move in to their home together?

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

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

5. 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?

6. Describe the sign the man and woman received from the Neighborhood watch. How was it supposed to "prove the property owner was no racist" (25)?

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

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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