View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. When Meg and Molly are in their hotel room together, what does Molly ask her mother to buy her?

2. What surprise does Vicky arrange for Lorelei during Easter of 1999?

3. What job does Beth go to school to learn to do?

4. Who calls Meg while she is in the hotel room with Molly?

5. Besides her weight loss, what physical clue to Lorelei's ill health does Meg notice during Easter of 1999?

Short Essay Questions

1. When Kayleigh is talking to Beth about quitting smoking, what does Beth assume she is really saying, and why?

2. What is the one thing about Lorelei that Vicky cannot understand, and how does she try to reconcile herself to it?

3. Describe Bill and Beth's relationship as it stands in April of 1999.

4. How does the craft box demonstrate how Lorelei's collecting evolves into hoarding?

5. In the early years of her relationship with Lorelei, how does Vicky view Lorelei, and how does she view Lorelei's children?

6. When Meg and Molly go in to start clearing out Lorelei's house, why is it such a relief to them when they reach the landing of the stairs?

7. When Molly asks Meg whether she would have liked Rhys,what is Meg's response?

8. What does Rory think is Lorelei's way of dealing with Rhys's death?

9. What is foreshadowed by Lorelei and Vicky's conversation after Vicky confesses to having given some of Lorelei's things to charity?

10. How does the perspective shift between Meg and Beth after Meg tries to call Beth back clarify Beth's intentions in calling and her reasons for not answering when Meg calls back?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In what ways is Beth's thinking like her mother's? In what ways does it differ? Do you imagine that Lorelei encouraged her children to develop effective adult thinking skills? Are Beth and Lorelei more alike or more different, emotionally? Write an essay that considers the relationship between having Lorelei Bird as a mother and Beth's delayed intellectual and emotional maturation. Make a clear claim about how Lorelei's parenting affected Beth's maturity, and support your claim with evidence drawn from throughout the text. Be sure to cite any quoted evidence in MLA format.

Essay Topic 2

You have spent some time considering how the loss of Rhys impacted Rory later in life. Now, choose a different family member and write an essay that makes and defends a claim about how Rhys's death impacted this character. Consider their relationship with Rhys, their individual personality and capabilities, and in what way their later life might have been different had Rhys lived a natural lifespan. Support your ideas with evidence drawn from throughout the novel.

Essay Topic 3

Are the Bird siblings estranged from one another because of the kind of household they grew up in, and because of circumstances beyond their control--like Rhys's death? Or is their estrangement more due to the siblings' personalities and differing worldviews? Or is the problem some combination of both? Write an essay in which you take a position about what has really caused the Bird siblings to grow so far apart from one another. Support your ideas with evidence drawn from throughout the novel.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,209 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample