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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. Who is Frankie's ticket to moving out of her childhood home?

2. What is the first documentary Tara makes about?

3. What does Lizzie, Sally's sister's best friend, have waiting at her apartment after picking up Bud from the train station?

4. Who teaches Tara and her sister how to read when they live in Nepal?

5. At the beginning of Chapter 6, at what age does Tara's mother, Frankie, almost get married?

Short Essay Questions

1. After his medical treatments, what does Saul do when he arrives back home?

2. Rachel describes her brother as "a total pill." How does Saul's illness affect his character?

3. After Matthew gets his job at Devils Postpile National Monument, what do he and Frankie argue about?

4. When Frankie quits her job at the doctor's office, how does her then boyfriend, Quinn, react?

5. What things during dinner with his father does Bud learn about the world?

6. What does Tara's father, Matthew, do for a living once in Kathmandu?

7. How does Rachel describe the personality of the nickname "Sister Susie," which Kirk fondly calls her?

8. How does Tara describe her parents' relationship with money?

9. How does Tara describe her childhood upbringing in Kathmandu?

10. What does Bud learn about from his childhood friendship with Sally?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay defining and analyzing the connections between money and power throughout the novel. How does Gil's relationship with money equate to unyielding power? Which other characters in the novel use money as a form of power and how do they wield it?

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay summarizing and then analyzing what you think to be the most significant chapter in the novel connected to the theme of love.

Essay Topic 3

Throughout Secrets of Happiness, each chapter is narrated by a different character's point of view, which lends the novel to myriad voices and perspectives. Write an essay analyzing Joan Silber's choice to structure the novel this way. How do the various points of view affect the plot of the story?

(see the answer keys)

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