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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 was Lavinia born doing, according to "Lavinia: An Old Story"?
(a) Eating.
(b) Crying.
(c) Laughing.
(d) Talking.

2. What does the older woman suggest the unwed mothers at the playground do in "Northeast Playground"?
(a) She suggests they apply for welfare.
(b) She suggests they mingle with the married mothers.
(c) She suggests they never marry.
(d) She suggests they find rich guys to marry.

3. What kind of story does the woman's father ask her to write in "Conversations with my Father"?
(a) A silly story.
(b) A simple story.
(c) A mystery.
(d) A romance.

4. What reminds the narrator of her mother standing in the doorway at the start of "Mother"?
(a) A song.
(b) A woman who looks like her.
(c) The sight of her old house.
(d) A smell.

5. What had happened to the young woman's daughters in "In the Garden"?
(a) They ran away.
(b) They were put into foster care.
(c) They died.
(d) They had been kidnapped.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Faith learn about her parents while talking with her father in "Dreamer in a Dead Language"?

2. Where does Dennis live?

3. Why does the grandmother worry about Sonia?

4. What does Lavinia's mother tell Robert Lavinia should become?

5. What does the woman ask Mr. Zagrowsky at the start of "Zagrowsky Tells"?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Faith's family react when she tells them of her stay with Mrs. Luddy in "The Long-Distance Runner"?

2. What does Faith do at the end of the story after she and her father argue? Describe the mood.

3. Compare and contrast the mothers at the playground in "Northeast Playground" to the mothers when the older woman was a young mother.

4. What is Dotty Wasserman's role in the story "Love"?

5. What happened to Selena's daughter Abby? What did Tonto say about Abby at the end?

6. What saved Vicente's wife in "A Man Told Me the Story of His Life"?

7. Describe the progression of the man's relationship with his female neighbor in "The Burdened Man."

8. What does Jack say could happen if they have a baby as the narrator suggests in "The Story Hearer"?

9. Describe Dennis in "Enormous Changes at the Last Minute." How does he react when he learns Alexandra is pregnant?

10. What does Jack suspect is the real reason Faith wants a baby in "Listening"?

(see the answer keys)

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