View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who helped Kiyoshi choose the necklace for his wife?
(a) Kinuyo.
(b) Kazu.
(c) Kyoko.
(d) Miki.

2. What is the primary intent of the passage in which Miki comes out to pour the coffee and Nagare questions her about her readiness for the task?
(a) To show the deep love and tenderness Nagare feels toward his daughter.
(b) To show how joyful Nagare is to see his daughter growing up and becoming responsible.
(c) To show what an anxious parent the loss of his wife has made Nagare.
(d) To show that Nagare is unreasonably critical of Miki because of his high standards.

3. When the narrator says that Yukio "felt like he had fallen into a deep crevasse," which is the best definition of "crevasse" (66)?
(a) Hole.
(b) Swamp.
(c) Dilemma.
(d) Depression.

4. How long ago did Kiyoshi's wife die?
(a) 15 years.
(b) 30 years.
(c) 3 years.
(d) 5 years.

5. What does Miki find on the café floor after Kiyoshi returns from the past?
(a) A paper with a wish written on it.
(b) A snowflake.
(c) A cricket.
(d) A cherry-blossom petal.

Short Answer Questions

1. What illness did Yukio contract when he was two years old?

2. What characteristic of the café's Christmas tree is stressed in the narrator's description of it?

3. What order is Kyoko waiting for at the beginning of the story?

4. Prior to Kiyoshi's trip into the past, how many people have used the café to travel back in time to meet someone who has died?

5. What is implied when the narrator says that, upon hearing of his mother's death, Yukio "heard a tautly stretched string snapping inside his head" (66)?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is similar about Asami's decision to meet Kurata and the advice Kurata gave her after her miscarriage?

2. What complication almost prevents Kiyoshi from traveling back in time, and how does Nagare solve the problem?

3. What similarity does Kiyoshi see between his and Kazu's situations?

4. What does Kinuyo explain to Yukio about the silver stirrer, and what does he realize this means Kinuyo knows?

5. When Kimiko enters the café, whom does Kiyoshi pretend to be, and why?

6. What larger point about life is the narrator of "Husband and Wife" making in the story's introductory comments about winter and spring?

7. What comparison does Yukio make between his own situation and that of a character in Maeterlinck's The Blue Bird?

8. What are the conditions that Kurata gives Fumiko for either bringing or not bringing Asami to the café?

9. After Asami suffered a miscarriage, what advice did Kurata give her?

10. How did Kinuyo prove her devotion to her son over and over during his childhood?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,097 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample