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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. What would Harold show the audience members during part of their act?

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

3. What does the narrator say audience members ate while waiting for the act to begin?

4. What does the narrator point out in paragraph one about how her mother moves through the house?

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

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

9. 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?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay examining fire as a symbol in Leap. In what scenes does fire appear? What is the context? How does this symbol develop the narrative?

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay describing the imagery used in “The Leap." Indicate examples of imagery in the text and identify possible meanings.

(see the answer keys)

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