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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 do they do the day before the expedition heads out for the North Pole?

2. which immigrants are sent back home?

3. Where is the train headed?

4. What plea does Shaw's mother want him to make in court but he flatly refuses?

5. What do most of the 1mmigrants find as they settle in New York?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Father's condition when he returns form the Arctic?

2. What idea does Tateh have that makes them money.

3. What becomes the fashion among the rich in turn of the century America?

4. What does Tateh notice about The Girl on their train trip.

5. What is Evelyn doing with Younger Brother after Tateh and The girl leave?

6. What does Younger Brother do for a political rally in Rye, New York?

7. What is the nature of Evelyn's testimony in Harry's trial?

8. What does the Franklin Novelty Company do with Tateh's books?

9. How are Tateh and The Girl rescued from being separated?

10. What does The boy see Mother do in the back garden?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Look up information on Henry Ford and the assembly line production of Model-T cars and write a brief paper. What did Ford's assembly line have to do with Coalhouse Walker's ability to own a brand new Model-T? What does Coalhouse's car symbolize to the men at Emerald Isle Fire Station? Does ownership of the car give Coalhouse an air of superiority? Analyze how the car might have affected Father who never really liked Coalhouse. When Father and The Boy go into New York to the Giants game, they take the train. Even though he can afford a car, why does the family not seem to have one?

Essay Topic 2

Write a paper on child labor. Express your opinion about child labor at the turn of the 19th-20th century and in places in the world today. Perhaps Charles Dickens is the most famous novelist to address the issue of child labor. Doctorow describes child labor in America in the 1890s and early 1900s in two brief passages. One has to do with child abductions and sexual abuse and the other has to do with the reason manufacturers liked child labor. Your paper should use those examples and discuss the harmful effects on children when they are do devalued.

Essay Topic 3

Do some research and write a brief paper on J. Pierpont Morgan. Political cartoons of his time pictured Morgan as being bigger than Uncle Sam. In fact, he did bail out the U.S. economy at one time. There is even an undertone of racism in Morgan in the novel when he cables the D. A. to give Coalhouse his auto and hang him. From your research, explain how Doctorow's use of Morgan in the novel is believable.

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