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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What gifts did the man's mother give the little boy for Christmas the year they built a higher wall?

2. What is the gardener doing as he walks back to the house at the end of the story?

3. Who runs out of the house second and finds the boy at the end of the story?

4. At the end of the story, what is the coil tunnel said to be "just wide enough for" (30)?

5. What does the boy pretend the serrated metal coils are at the end of the story?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why did the neighborhood alarm systems tend to go unanswered?

2. Rather than noting lovely roses and gardens, what did the man and woman begin to admire during their neighborhood walks with their son and dog?

3. After building a higher wall, what did the man and woman notice the cat doing one night while discussing the latest robberies?

4. Who helps remove the little boy at the end of the story? How do they do it?

5. How did the son end up getting entangled in the new security fence at the end of the story?

6. What did the son pretend to be the day after his mother read him a fairy tale from the book the Wise Old Witch gave him?

7. Describe the various security options the man and woman noticed during their neighborhood walk.

8. What were intruders able to do even while the alarms wailed in the suburbs, and what did they take?

9. What did the wife do for the people who hung around looking for work outside their home? What did the housemaid think of them?

10. What does the wife tell her husband she is worried after installing the serrated metal coils around their wall?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write a brief essay analyzing the title “Once Upon a Time.” Explore the ways in which this title connects to the plot and themes of the story.

Essay Topic 2

Discuss elements of the narrative structure; Exposition, conflict, complication, climax, resolution and conclusion. Do all the elements make for a logical and linear story? How does the story's structure express the themes?

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay examining security devices as a symbol in “Once Upon a Time.” In what scenes do these devices appear? What is the context? How do these devices develop the narrative?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 745 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample