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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 type of audience does The Alice Ponds Show attract?
(a) A wealthy, philanthropic audience.
(b) An educated, boysterous audience.
(c) The type of audience that watches PBS specials.
(d) An uneducated, loud audience.

2. In the stanza of the poem that opens Chapter 12, who or what is dead?
(a) Hope.
(b) Understanding.
(c) Sydney.
(d) Shawn.

3. After Shawn's father sits on Shawn's oversized crib, what does he put in his lap?
(a) A mobile.
(b) A pillow.
(c) Shawn.
(d) A quilt.

4. After the fight, who tells the strangers that they need to leave the yard?
(a) Lindy.
(b) Cindy.
(c) Ally.
(d) Paul.

5. What do the ruffians do to Shawn?
(a) They squirt him with a hose.
(b) They dump him out of his wheelchair.
(c) They stab the tires of his wheelchair.
(d) They burn him.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Shawn in Chapter 10, what does it mean when his mother sounds overly positive?

2. What does the reader know for sure Vonda has in her purse?

3. When Shawn tells Ally that he loves her, what word or phrase does he almost add?

4. After Shawn's father sits on his oversized crib, what does he do to Shawn?

5. What seems to fall off of the computer screen in Chapter 14?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why is it significant that Shawn's father volunteers to take care of Shawn by himself overnight and sends Vonda home?

2. The morning after Ally spends the night, why does Shawn think that something is wrong?

3. What is the Annie-Sullivan-meeting-Helen Keller-in-The Miracle-Worker routine and what does Shawn think about it?

4. If Shawn has never been to his father's house, does Shawn have an accurate knowledge of what his father's bedroom looks like, and if so, how does he know?

5. Shawn looks at his father, who is sitting on the bed apparently considering whether or not he should end Shawn's life. What does he notice about his father's appearance?

6. How does Shawn react to meeting his sister's friend Ally, and why?

7. Why does Paul grab Cindy by the shirt front and pull back his fist to hit her?

8. In Chapter 14, Shawn dreams that his father sees angels. What is the significance of the angels?

9. Paul and Cindy discuss their father's appearance on The Alice Ponds Show. What do they think about what their father says on the show?

10. Why does Shawn say in Chapter 12 that he never loved or feared his brother more than at one particular moment the previous summer?

(see the answer keys)

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