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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. In what month and year does the narrator's story begin?
(a) July of 1969.
(b) January of 1967.
(c) January of 1961.
(d) July of 1961.

2. What circumstances led to Emil's blindness and facial scarring?
(a) A fire.
(b) A bar fight.
(c) War wounds.
(d) A boating accident.

3. Who fixes Jake's suit?
(a) Nathan.
(b) Ariel.
(c) Ruth.
(d) Frank.

4. Why does Jake want Frank to answer people's questions about the incident with Emil instead of answering himself?
(a) Because he still does not feel well.
(b) Because he cannot stop crying.
(c) Because he is so shaken by the incident that he does not know what to say.
(d) Because he is worried he will stutter.

5. When Father Peter tells Nathan the reasons for the townspeople's negative feelings about Ruth's role as the minister's wife, what three reasons does he give?
(a) Ruth drinks, swears, and does not make weekly visits to the different families' homes.
(b) Ruth smokes, drinks, and shuns the activities of the Women's Society of Christian Service.
(c) Ruth smokes, swears, and wears short skirts to church services.
(d) Ruth frequently skips church, does not invite families to her home, and does not provide donuts after church services.

Short Answer Questions

1. What reason does Frank give for thinking his father might be disappointed to find Frank and Jake reading comic books?

2. How was Bobby Cole killed?

3. Who arrives at Emil and Lise's house moments after the firemen have left with Emil?

4. When Warren Redstone asks Frank what kind of name Drum is, what is Frank's reply?

5. Whose conversation does Frank overhear when he is hiding behind the stage at the theater?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Officer Doyle's search of Warren Redstone's lean-to sway the reader's opinion of Warren Redstone's character?

2. Where do Frank and Jake go just before Bobby Cole's funeral, and how does Jake's suit sleeve get ripped?

3. What happens within the conversation Frank overhears between Nathan and Emil after Emil's return from the private hospital?

4. What is the situation that results in Frank, Jake, and Nathan going to the jail in the middle of the night?

5. What is the outcome of Nathan's and Gus' search for Travis Klement, the man they know to have beaten his wife and son?

6. How does Gus' monologue about killing a man relate to the novel's title?

7. How does Frank convince his dad to give him the tire iron for the boys' walk home from the jail and what do they subsequently do with it?

8. During Gus' and Frank's conversation about Nathan's experiences in the war, what two sources of information does Gus warn Frank against heeding?

9. What causes Frank to abruptly run away from the Indian man and to drag Jake along with him?

10. When Frank and Jake come upon the Indian man and the apparently lifeless man referred to as Skipper, the Indian man says, "Know what I like about railroad tracks? They're always there but they're always moving" (32). When Jake replies, "Just like a river" (32), why is Frank shocked at Jake's reply?

(see the answer keys)

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