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

2. After the incident with a neighbor's housemaid, what did the man and woman's housemaid beg them to do?
(a) Install burglar bars and an alarm system.
(b) Move to the country.
(c) Give her a raise.
(d) Get a gun.

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

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

5. What precautions does the narrator say she does not take in her home, despite having the same fears of those that do?
(a) She has no burglar bars or gun under her pillow.
(b) She does not have guard dogs or security alarms.
(c) She does not have a phone nearby or a bat under her bed.
(d) She does not have locks on her doors.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. According to the narrator's tale, under what conditions were people who lived in the city allowed in the suburbs?

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

4. Who had recommended the gardener to the man and his wife?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. 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).

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

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

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

7. 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)?

8. 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?

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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