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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 man tell his wife to ease her fears the people from the city will come to their house in the suburbs?
(a) There are police and soldiers and tear-gas to keep them away.
(b) The people of the city will not know how to get there.
(c) The people of the city have no interest in the suburbs.
(d) The buses will not take them to the city.

2. What does the wife worry the people from the city might come to their home and do some day?
(a) Throw bombs and destroy all they have.
(b) Tear off the plaque and stream in.
(c) Kidnap their maid and gardener.
(d) Go for a swim in their beautiful pool.

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

4. Where did the man and woman get the plaque that said "YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED" (25) when they first began their life together?
(a) The woman's father.
(b) The Neighborhood Watch.
(c) The man's mother.
(d) A local gift-shop.

5. What instrument does the narrator cite when describing how "the misbeats of [her] heart tailed off" (24)?
(a) Trumpet.
(b) Saxophone.
(c) Flute.
(d) Xylophone.

Short Answer Questions

1. What "most profound" place does the narrator say men may be deep under her home?

2. What is the man's mother called in the narrator's tale?

3. What are the man and woman warned against doing as they start their lives together?

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

5. Who is the author of "Once Upon a Time"?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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. 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?

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

9. 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).

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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