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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What are Shawn's main teachers in life?
(a) His parents.
(b) His siblings.
(c) The television, car radio, overheard conversations, and reading.
(d) Special education teachers.

2. What word or concept is confusing to Shawn until he sees it written out?
(a) Mozart.
(b) Euthanasia.
(c) Bow legged.
(d) Lighter.

3. What does Shawn's father always do to Shawn when he comes to visit?
(a) Brings a vanilla cookie.
(b) Bends his thumbs backward.
(c) Makes Shawn sit up straighter in his wheelchair.
(d) Reads the first stanza of the award-winning poem.

4. What does Shawn not know at the time that he sees the dog killed?
(a) That death is a part of the cycle of life.
(b) That there is an afterlife.
(c) That death is painless.
(d) That his father might be planning his own death.

5. When Shawn describes his seizures in great detail, according to him what is it about his seizures that is especially irritating to his family?
(a) The spasms.
(b) His uncontrollable drooling.
(c) His uncontrollable laughter.
(d) The unpredictablility of the timing of the seizures.

6. During the last time that Shawn's father feeds him, what happens?
(a) Shawn's mother breaks dishes in the sink.
(b) Shawn spits up formula on his father's shirt.
(c) Shawn throws the spoon across the room.
(d) Shawn coughs food into his father's face.

7. Why does Shawn say that he loves his seizures?
(a) They do not hurt.
(b) He is being sarcastic.
(c) They are reality.
(d) They made him famous.

8. How old is Becky, one of the teacher assistants?
(a) Thirty.
(b) Sixty.
(c) Fifty.
(d) Twenty.

9. What does Shawn think about the city in which he lives?
(a) It's too rainy.
(b) It's not sunny enough.
(c) It's cool beyond belief.
(d) It's wild to live near so many sports teams.

10. While making the PBS Special at Shawn's classroom, Sydney McDaniel claims that people will not place ineducable children where?
(a) Expensive hospitals.
(b) Impersonal group homes or institutions.
(c) Low quality foster care.
(d) Expensive hospices.

11. How old is Shawn when he learns to read?
(a) Five.
(b) Eight.
(c) Seven.
(d) Six.

12. What does Shawn consider the bad part of his seizures?
(a) The muscle contractions.
(b) The loss of consciousness.
(c) The paralysis.
(d) The loss of bladder and bowel control.

13. What does Shawn think about death?
(a) Death will put him out of his misery.
(b) Death is the exactly the opposite of of what Cindy says it is.
(c) Death is a big fat nothing.
(d) Death is peaceful.

14. Why is Dad enraged and fearful after the experience with the crow?
(a) Because it is humiliating to have to be afraid of a crow.
(b) Because he realizes that Shawn is helpless and impossible to protect.
(c) Because his ex-wife left Shawn alone with him.
(d) Because the crow may induce a seizure in Shawn.

15. What is the pain that Dad speaks of wanting to end for Shawn?
(a) The pain of grand mal seizures.
(b) The pain of muscle spasms.
(c) The pain associated with bleeding in the brain.
(d) The pain of knowing a loveless life.

Short Answer Questions

1. How many times has Shawn's father said his name aloud in his presence?

2. What phrase is still confusing to Shawn?

3. Why does Shawn get confused about some aspects and experiences of life?

4. Why did Shawn think that he understood what death looked like before the dog died?

5. Where does the crow land?

(see the answer keys)

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