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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 Faith find has returned to her house when she comes back from Mrs. Luddy's?

2. What did Faith and her friends do to Mr. Zargrowsky years earlier?

3. What event trigged Cissy being sent to a psychiatric home?

4. What had Lavinia's mother planned to do for work before she got married?

5. Where do the American tourists visit in "Somewhere Else"?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Who is Sonia in "In This Country: But in Another Language..."? Why is the grandmother worried about ther?

3. Describe Nick and Faith's relationship in "The Expensive Moment."

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

5. What do the men on the subway think of when they see Samuel and his friends jumping on the platform?

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

7. What happens to Juniper in "Little Girl"?

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

9. Why is the birth in "At That Time, or The History of a Joke" said to be a miracle?

10. Who tells the American tourists they "do not love the Chinese people" (288) in "Somewhere Else"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Choose a character from one story in the collection and discuss their role in creating conflict in the story.

Essay Topic 2

Choose one story and write an essay examining the ending. How did the ending fit into the storyline? Do you think the ending was effective? What theme might the ending represent? What might the author have done differently?

Essay Topic 3

Examine the use of dialogue versus the use of description. Write an essay about how each is used in Paley's stories.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 804 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample