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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. 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.

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

3. What does the narrator realize is the reason for the creaking sound in her house?
(a) Her housing shifting.
(b) Her child.
(c) An intruder.
(d) Her cat.

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

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

Short Answer Questions

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

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

3. What is the narrator's house built atop?

4. What did the old widower who was murdered have to protect him?

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

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

7. 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?

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

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

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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