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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What newscaster does Cleo watch as she listens to Rita Jean on the phone in the beginning of “Old Things”?
(a) Alex Jones
(b) Barbara Walters
(c) Peter Jennings
(d) Tom Brokaw

2. Who is the narrator in “Detroit Skyline, 1949”?
(a) Cleo
(b) Peggy Jo
(c) Louise
(d) Sarah

3. Dolores’s friend is said to have gone to a dude ranch where when an earthquake was predicted for western Kentucky in “The Climber”?
(a) California
(b) Arizona
(c) Maine
(d) Arkansas

4. Louise’s husband in “Still Life with Watermelon” is currently where?
(a) Mississippi
(b) Oklahoma
(c) Texas
(d) Arkansas

5. According to the narrator of “The Climber,” “Dolores has the Christian channel on only for the” what?
(a) Music
(b) Preaching
(c) Noise
(d) Sermons

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the name of the narrator’s aunt in “Detroit Skyline, 1949” that she and her mother went to visit in Detroit when she was young?

2. Louise has lost her job where in “Still Life with Watermelon”?

3. The narrator says in the beginning of “Offerings” that Sandra’s maternal grandmother died at what age?

4. The narrator of “Offerings” says Sandra “grows vegetables and counts her” what?

5. As Louise progresses in her paintings of watermelons in “Still Life with Watermelon,” she begins varying the backgrounds, “and sometimes now she throws in unusual decorative objects—a few candles, a soap dish,” and what?

Short Essay Questions

1. What are the central themes in the stories of Bobbie Ann Mason’s anthology?

2. How are Mack’s feelings about the weather described in “The Rookers”?

3. How does the narrator describe the final years of Sandra’s paternal grandfather in “Offerings”?

4. How is the character of Jim Walsh described in “Drawing Names”?

5. What constitutes the basic plot line of “Shiloh”? What is the story essentially about?

6. Why is the tree being removed in “The Climber”?

7. What examples are given of Dusty’s tendencies to overreact in “The Climber”?

8. How are Louise’s watermelon paintings described in the beginning of “Still Life with Watermelon”?

9. How does Linda respond when Cleo implies she’s old by saying “I’m not sixteen anymore” in “Old Things”?

10. How is Mabel characterized in “Shiloh”? What is Norma Jean’s relationship with Mabel like?

(see the answer keys)

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