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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. Who does Gig fall into a romance with?

2. What mine does Brand know Rye's father worked at in Montana?

3. What refrain do the labor protesters keep saying during the police crackdown in Part I?

4. Who wrote the book The Plover, a quote from which Walter begins Part I?

5. What is the last name of the ferryman that Jules takes for himself?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Ursula, Margaret Anne Burns, learn from the First Ursula, Edith?

2. Where does the IWW's nickname come from?

3. In Chapter 13, what does Rye say that elicits Fred Moore's sympathy at Mrs. Ricci's house?

4. Why does Rye follow Gig to the labor protests in Part I even though Gig tells him not to?

5. Why are Gig and Rye sleeping in a ballfield in Chapter 1?

6. What does Rye think of Lemuel Brand's house?

7. What happens to Jules when two men steal the raft of the ferryman Plante from him in 1864?

8. Who does Ursula take Rye to see, and why does she do this?

9. What does Gemma tell Dominick Jules thought about burial practices when he was young?

10. How do Rye, Gig, Jules and the mystery person get away from the police when they are cornered?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How does Rye's attitude towards literature and culture change over the course of the novel? Write an essay explaining your answers, citing specific references to the text to help support your conclusions.

Essay Topic 2

What character traits, choices, and trade-offs do you think contribute to the most to the fact that Rye is one of the few main male characters in the book to live to an older age? Write an essay explaining your answers, citing specific references to the text to help support your conclusions.

Essay Topic 3

How does Rye's first-person-narrated section at the very end of the novel change the way the reader feels about him? Why do you think Rye chose not to get more involved in activism following the advent of Gig's death, and instead chose a quiet life of steady hard work? Write an essay explaining your answers, citing specific references to the text to help support your answers.

(see the answer keys)

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