View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. In "The Last Battle", who stoops and touches the dwarves with his tongue?

2. What did the author's mother use when she "struck to kill?"

3. In Part One of the book, what was not a tradition in the Buechner family in relation to death?

4. According to the author, what is the doorway to healing and forgiveness?

5. When the author's sick daughter had to be hospitalized, how many miles away was she?

Short Essay Questions

1. What did the author say he would deal with in this autobiography "Telling Secrets?"

2. How did the author's mother's aging affect her sons' lives?

3. According to the author, how does memory help us finish with the past?

4. How does the author describe God loving us, and loving his daughter?

5. What did the author deal with in first two autobiographies?

6. What illness did the author's daughter have and how did it affect her?

7. Why does the author write "The Wizard's Tide" and what differs in the book from his childhood memory of his father's death?

8. Why did the author's mother have so few friends as she got older?

9. What is the most sacred function of memory?

10. How did author's mom respond to his fictionalized version of his father's death and how did her reaction to this fist telling affect the author's writing about the death later?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The author introduces us to the Tower of London, specifically the the oldest part, the White Tower. What is the White Tower? Why does the author include this information in the book? How does the author connect the details he provided about the White Tower to himself, to his life?

Essay Topic 2

Explain what the author means when he writes that by watching and listening we are praying. How does God speak to us in quietness? What is "God's place" in us? What deadens us to God's presence within us? How does Psalm 131 illustrate these points from the author?

Essay Topic 3

The author's mother is quoted in Part One of the book as saying, "If I didn't have something to look for, I would be lost." Answer either A or B.

A. Why does she make this statement? Discuss the significance of the mother losing her beauty and trying to find it daily with her make-up and other enhancements, in relation to her state of mind, her health, and her relationship with her sons and her caregivers/friends.

B. Why does the author describe the statement as one of his mother's "most shimmering utterances?" How does this theme of "lost and found" play out throughout the details of the author's life described in the book - his family (mom and brother, wife and kids), friends, students?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 887 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample