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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 does Jimmy think about instead of his father?

2. Where do Crab and Jimmy enter as they cross a bridge?

3. Where do Crab and Jimmy go when they arrive?

4. Where do Crab and Jimmy go after this visit?

5. Crab and Jimmy leave when Mavis goes where?

Short Essay Questions

1. Where do Crab and Jimmy go after the diner?

2. What does the conjure man tell Crab?

3. What are Jimmy's thoughts on returning to the room alone?

4. Where is Jimmy when he wakes up after some driving?

5. What does Crab tell Jimmy about the diner where they stop?

6. Where do Crab and Jimmy stop in Chicago?

7. What do Crab and Jimmy do in the morning?

8. Where does Jimmy go to collect Crab, and how do they pass the night?

9. How does Jimmy find out that Crab is sick?

10. Why does Crab tell Jimmy to go to the room and stay there alone all night?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Use the book as a meditation on the value of a five-star rating system. Is a five-star system sufficient to a book like this? Would you need to have sub-topics for the rating system, for plot, characterization, language, etc? What other sub-topics would you need? What value or importance gets lost in a five-star scale? Design a scale that would be better for this book.

Essay Topic 2

Crab's illness makes it impossible for him to play more than an episodic role in Jimmy's life. How else does his illness figure in the book? Is it a symbol or a metaphor? What does it symbolize? What clues does the author give us, that Crab's illness might mean more than just his individual sickness?

Essay Topic 3

Would you recommend "Somewhere in the Darkness"? For what purposes would you recommend "Somewhere in the Darkness", and what kinds of readers would you recommend it for? What other book would you recommend that would cover the same material or tell the same story in a different way?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 519 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample