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

2. What does the husband do to assuage his wife's fears that people from the city might intrude on their home in the suburbs?
(a) He buys her a gun.
(b) He buys them a house in the country.
(c) He has electronically-controlled gates installed.
(d) He adds padlocks to their doors.

3. According to the narrator's tale, who were being shot by the police in the city?
(a) Rioters.
(b) Other police officers.
(c) Burglars.
(d) Schoolchildren.

4. Who is said to have offered a warning to the man and woman when they started their life together?
(a) The neighbors.
(b) The man's mother.
(c) The town councilor.
(d) The woman's father.

5. 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) Carefree and fancy free.
(c) In eternal despair.
(d) Happily ever after.

Short Answer Questions

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

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

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

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

5. What game did the little boy like to play after they installed a speaker at the gates of their home?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

4. 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)?

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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