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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. Rex dies during Part 4 as a result of:
(a) Suicide.
(b) Cancer.
(c) A heart attack.
(d) Liver failure due to alcoholism.

2. What does Brian do when some neighborhood kids break out a window in the house?
(a) He sits on the porch and cries.
(b) He chases after them and throws rocks at them.
(c) He tells his father, who goes to talk to the other parents.
(d) He ignores them.

3. What incident gets Maureen sentenced to one year in the hospital?
(a) She stabs her mother during an argument.
(b) She threatens her brother and sisters.
(c) She sets fire to her boyfriend's home.
(d) She robs a convenience store while on drugs.

4. The owner of the paper that Jeannette works for encourages her to do what?
(a) Go back to her parents.
(b) Take time off after high school to decide what she wants to do.
(c) Go to college.
(d) Take a job at the paper.

5. Who is Dinitia?
(a) A cousin of the Walls children who comes to stay with them.
(b) Rex's new girlfriend.
(c) Erma's sister.
(d) A little girl who at first bullies Jeannette, but then befriends her.

Short Answer Questions

1. How do Jeannette's views of her parents' behavior change as she develops into a teenager?

2. How does Jeannette's grandparents feel about her relationship with Dinitia?

3. Where are Jeannette's parents living when they move to New York?

4. For what purpose do Jeannette and Brian start digging a large hole in the backyard?

5. Why does Jeannette become upset at the man that gives her and her father a ride home from a bar in Part 3?

Short Essay Questions

1. After the incident between the children and Erma, what does Jeannette begin to wonder about her father?

2. What are some of the reasons that the children do not like going to school in Welch?

3. What events help form Jeannette's desire to be a professional writer?

4. Why does Jeannette enjoy swimming with Dinitia more than going to the pool during the other swim sessions when the rest of the white children in Welch swim?

5. How are Brian, Maureen, and Jeannette's ways of coping with their home life differ? What does each of them do?

6. Describe Jeannette's reaction when her mother comes to her, begging her and her new husband to buy some property in Texas that abutted her own.

7. What plans do Lori and Jeannette begin to make for themselves at the end of Part 3?

8. How does Rose Mary view her and Rex's living situation in New York? How do the other members of the family see things differently?

9. What is Jeannette's reaction when a social worker comes to visit the home, and what does she tell her parents about it?

10. What potentially dangerous situation does Rex put Jeannette in while her mother is out of town for training?

(see the answer keys)

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