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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. Both sides use the media in attempts to throw off the other. How?

2. By ending the defense without a closing argument, Darrow averts what?

3. What is President Calvin Coolidge's position on the trial?

4. The jury deliberates how long before returning with a guilty verdict?

5. Bryan begins to believe that the trial needs to exclude any discussion on what?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the questioning of the jury proceed?

2. What is the issue over the morning prayer at the trial?

3. What are the primary positions of the defense and the prosecution?

4. Why is it in the final analysis that neither side is able to claim a decisive victory?

5. What does Bryan do the first weekend after jury selection?

6. Why is it important which witness the defense opens with?

7. How do fundamentalists approach modernists and evolutionists to debate?

8. How is Bryan at the center of the pretrial publicity?

9. How is Dayton left following the trial?

10. Why is Monday, the second trial date, essential for the defense?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What controversies take place regarding daily prayers during the trial? What objections does the defense make, and why? What do they request? What position does the prosecution maintain? Upon hearing the judge's decision, what is expected and what finally results?

Essay Topic 2

What descriptions and statements does Larson utilize to portray the scene of the trial? What is it the reader easily views, and why?

Essay Topic 3

In the introduction to Summer of the Gods, Edward J. Larson focuses on the two principal attorneys in the trial. What are the professional backgrounds of Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan? Why are they each so keen on participating in the trial? How do their respective personalities and feelings concerning the causes they believe in affect the trial?

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