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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. What retort does the wayward nun have for the abbess?

2. As they travel along, what do Rabatta and Bondone begin to do?

3. What does Caterina beg her parents to allow her to do?

4. How does Ricciardo avoid being killed for his transgression?

5. How does Peronella explain the man who is in the barrel?

Short Essay Questions

1. Explain how Peronella gets away with having a lover.

2. What unusual thing causes Peronella and her lover to look for a place to hide him?

3. What is the reply that Bondone gives Rabatta after his insult?

4. What does Gualtieri do to assure himself that his wife, Griselda, is a worthy woman?

5. When Monna Giovanna's son becomes seriously ill, what does he tell her might make him better?

6. How does Calandrino learn that the magic has gone out of the rocks?

7. How does Peronella turn the situation around and get her husband inside the barrel.

8. What plan does Caterina devise in order to be with Ricciardo?

9. When two of Brother Onion's friends see him in the village proclaiming he will show a feather from the angel Gabriel, what do they plan to do?

10. What happens that Don Gianni declares has broken the spell to change Pietro's wife into a mare?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay of at least two typewritten, double spaced pages on the topic, The Absurdity of Applying Double Standards. Using the tale of the abbess who is caught with a man's pants on her head instead of her veil, write about applying double standards. Use both religious and political examples from the modern world as other examples in your essay.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay of at least two typewritten, double spaced pages on the topic, Man's Desire to Return from the Dead. In your essay point out that one reason for returning from the dead is to tell the living what it is like on the other side. Compare the pact made by Tingoccio Mini and Meuccio di Tura with the Twentieth Century magician, Harry Houdini who made a similar promise. Conclude with the fact that there is no evidence that anyone has ever succeeded in this return.

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay of at least two typewritten, double spaced pages on the topic, Why Story Telling is Becoming a Lost Art. Begin with the modern media today that involves being spoon fed stories in visual and interactive formats. Discuss the fact that people no longer sit together and relate tales they have made up or have heard. Speculate how different the situation of THE DECAMERON would have been if all the people in the group had iPods and PCs.

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