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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. What did Anna and Harold do "openly" as they performed according to paragraph 5?
(a) Laugh and flirt.
(b) Yell and argue.
(c) Fumble and fall.
(d) Sing and dance.

2. In paragraph 2, what does the narrator say she sometimes thinks her mother has no memory of from her youth?
(a) School dances and young love.
(b) Devouring books and writing poetry.
(c) Cramming for tests and getting good grades.
(d) Double somersaults and heart-stopping catches.

3. What is the narrator's mother's name?
(a) Anna.
(b) Agnes.
(c) Alice.
(d) Abbeth.

4. What stands "cast in concrete" (para. 3) to commemorate the accident?
(a) A sequined costume.
(b) A feather boa.
(c) A replica tent pole.
(d) A statue of trapeze artists.

5. Where does the narrator and her mother live?
(a) Vermont.
(b) New Hampshire.
(c) Maine.
(d) Rhode Island.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the narrator suggest may have been Harold's final thought as he fell into the crowd on the day of the disaster?

2. What is the name of the narrator's mother's act?

3. What are some things the narrator says her mother has not kept from her youth?

4. Where does the narrator say the tabloids carried the story of their town's disaster?

5. Who was the other half of her mother's act?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the narrator describe the way her mother moves through their home in New Hampshire in paragraph 1?

2. How is the scene at the circus before the disaster described? What was the weather like? What was the audience doing?

3. What stands in the center of town as a reminder of the disaster? Where does the narrator find out about the events that day?

4. Describe Anna and Harold's typical trapeze performance.

5. Why does the narrator say people in the East are at a disadvantage regarding weather changes than those in the West, where she used to live?

6. Why does the narrator find it unsurprising that her mother was able to perform while seven months pregnant?

7. What events followed lightning striking the main tent pole while Harold and Anna were performing?

8. Why does the narrator sometimes forget that her mother was part of the Flying Avalons?

9. What type of performer was the narrator's mother? Where does she live and what is her medical condition?

10. What detail about Anna was not mentioned in the newspaper accounts of the disaster?

(see the answer keys)

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