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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. Where does the narrator say she used to live in paragraph 4?

2. What phrase is used to describe the narrator's mother's movements in paragraph 2?

3. What does the narrator sometimes do in her childhood room?

4. What condition does the narrator's mother have as explained in paragraph 1?

5. In paragraph 6, what does the narrator say her mother is able to live comfortably in?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10. 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?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay analyzing Louise Erdich’s commentary on family and motherhood in “The Leap.”

Essay Topic 2

Discuss why you think the author chose to leave out the name of the narrator and her father in “The Leap.”

Essay Topic 3

Discuss elements of the narrative structure: Exposition, conflict, complication, climax, resolution and conclusion. Do all the elements make for a logical and linear story? How does the story's structure express the story’s themes?

(see the answer keys)

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