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

2. Where does Maureen spend most of her time during her adolescence?

3. Where does Erma tell the children to go stay after the argument with Lori?

4. Where do the children go to shower after there is no longer any bathroom in their house?

5. What is Brian doing as he enters adolescence?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. What has the author found with her second husband that she did not have with her first?

4. Why does Rose Mary decide to hang on to the diamond ring that the children find in the woods rather than selling it for much needed money? What does this say about her priorities?

5. What incident leads Jeannette to finally making a friend in West Virginia?

6. Why does the owner of the paper that Jeannette works for talk her out of taking a job at his newspaper?

7. Why do Rex and Rose Mary follow their children to New York City to live?

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

9. When Erma dies, how does the Walls family react? How is Rex's reaction different from the rest of the family?

10. What happens when Jeannette makes an attempt to fix up her family's ramshackle home in West Virginia?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Life is hard for the Walls family wherever they go. However, in different places it is hard in different ways. Compare their lives in Phoenix, Battle Mountain, and Welch, answering each of the following questions about each location:

1) What are the family's basic living conditions like?

2) What is Rose Mary's emotional condition like and how does it affect the rest of the family?

3) Discuss Rex's emotional condition as well.

Essay Topic 2

In many ways, the author looks up to her father even as he makes poor decisions that affect the family negatively.

1) Discuss the author's conflicting view of her father as protector/provider and an alcoholic.

2) How does the author want the world to see or understand her father? What does she tell other people about him?

3) Do you think that she idealizes her father or that she is simply being fair in looking at the whole person, rather than the poor decisions that he makes?

Use specific examples from the book to illustrate your points.

Essay Topic 3

One of the author's earliest memories is of being badly burned while she is cooking by herself as a small child. She spends several weeks in the hospital, during which time she is not unhappy. In fact, she responds to the incident in a calm manner that belies her age.

1) What are Jeannette's memories of the incident? How does she react to the staff at the hospital?

2) How does Jeannette respond to the staff when they tell her that she is going to be all right?

3) What is her father's response to the incident? Do you find it surprising, or is it typical of him?

4) What do both Jeannette's and her parents' way of dealing with this incident say about each of their personalities and ways of approaching life?

(see the answer keys)

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