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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 job did Hamper get after he quit painting?

2. How had Hamper imagined his father's work before he saw it?

3. During his sophomore year of high school, what did Hamper name his rather large collection of poems?

4. When did GM schedule an applicant for a physical?

5. Why, primarily, did GM management not crack down on the employees' drinking during work?

Short Essay Questions

1. What do Hamper's stories about high school revolve around? How does this show that he was giving in to the nuns' perception of him that began in junior high?

2. What pattern emerged in junior-high that led Hamper to consider the life of a shop-rat? How did he begin to identify with his family who had worked in the factory?

3. To what does Hamper attribute his success at the beginning of high school? How does this fit into his plans for his life?

4. Who or what was Hamper's greatest enemy at work? How did he use his new attitude about work to combat the enemy?

5. How does Hamper describe the Cab Shop the first time he goes there? What about the description is the most informative about the scene?

6. "I'm thinking that rock stars, even dead ones, don't come cheap" (pg xix). In the context of the Prologue, what does this quote mean?

7. What is Hamper's first exposure to the true culture of the Cab Shop? How did this dramatically change his attitude toward work?

8. How did Hamper justify his drinking at work? What was his opinion about the people who disapproved of factory workers drinking at work, and is this opinion fair?

9. What promises did the Plant Manager make during the factory meeting? How did Hamper's retelling of the speech change its tone?

10. At the end of Chapter 1, what did Hamper reveal about his hopes for the future? What insight did he show about the past?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What effect did unemployment have on Flint? What happened when much of the population was unemployed and why? What do you think the mood of the town was?

Essay Topic 2

How did Roy's crackup prefigure Hamper's own mental breakdown? What role did Hamper play on Roy's story, and how did Roy's compare to his own?

Essay Topic 3

There is very little, if any, symbolism in the book Rivethead. What is the effect of a literal story? How does this method fit the subject matter?

(see the answer keys)

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