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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. When Michael went back to Ceylon and the tea estate, how many years had it been since his mother had been to the tea estate?

2. What was Susan's husband's name?

3. How long was the tunnel where Mervyn threatened to commit suicide?

4. How far apart were the resthouses in Ceylon?

5. As a teen, what song did Michael dance disgracefully to with girls?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why couldn't Mervyn stand Lalla?

2. Why did Lalla come to Kuttapitiya when Michael and his family lived there?

3. How did Lalla die?

4. How did Michael get a bath when he was five and attending a boarding school?

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

6. How did Mervyn nearly kill his three older children?

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

8. What did a fortune-teller predict when Doris left Ceylon in 1949?

9. What was Michael's Aunt Dolly like?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Lalla and Rene de Saram were friends who were neighbors and became widows. Compare Lalla and Rene.

Essay Topic 2

Michael and the children came upon a dead kabaragoya on the beach. Compare the kabaragoya and the thalagoya.

Essay Topic 3

Mervyn had an obsession with trains. Discuss why Mervyn's train rides became notorious.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 855 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample