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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. How far did Michael say one could drive in Ceylon and be in a different landscape?

2. How old was Lalla when she became a widow?

3. During the rainy season, how many hours a day would it rain at the tea estate?

4. Where did lightning strike the house on the tea estate?

5. At the time that Michael traveled to Ceylon, how old was his Aunt Dolly?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did Lalla die?

2. What was Michael's mother doing when David Grenier drowned?

3. When Mervyn was in his twenties, why did he stop a train ten miles out of Colombo?

4. Michael recorded sounds of the night in the jungle when he was in Ceylon. What did he hear when he played the tape back in Canada?

5. Why was Mervyn banned from the Ceylon Railroads after 1943?

6. What did Doris coach the three older children to do when Mervyn lapsed into one of his alcoholic states?

7. How did Lalla's father throw caution to the wind when he married a Dickman?

8. Why was it thought that Rene de Saram's husband was the victim of someone's charm?

9. What did it take to build a road from Colombo to Kandy?

10. What did Doris do when she was leaving Mervyn and he threw the car key into the tea bushes?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Michael said that in Ceylon all classes of people gambled. Discuss the role of gambling in Ceylon.

Essay Topic 2

Discuss Michael's purpose for writing "Running in the Family" and whether he achieved his purpose.

Essay Topic 3

Discuss how and why Michael decided to visit Ceylon.

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This section contains 825 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample