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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How long after the Minors settled in Ceylon was William Minor born?
(a) Three months.
(b) Five weeks.
(c) Two years.
(d) One year.

2. What was the tragedy of the three shots fired named by the papers?
(a) "The Lambeth Tragedy."
(b) "The Great Tragedy."
(c) "The Tragedy of London."
(d) "The Strategery."

3. How did the author describe the attitude of the killer caught for Merrett's death upon the killer's capture?
(a) Embarrassed and sad.
(b) Cool and collected.
(c) Bored and uninterested.
(d) Excited and happy.

4. What kind of Christianity did the Murray family follow?
(a) Methodist.
(b) United Church of Christ.
(c) Seventh Day Adventists.
(d) Congregationalist.

5. What word is defined in the opening of the book?
(a) Love.
(b) Murder.
(c) Kill.
(d) Word.

6. Where did Richard Chenevix Trench speak?
(a) In the London Library.
(b) Outside Cambridge University.
(c) In Town Hall.
(d) In the streets of London.

7. In what century did demand for dictionaries increase?
(a) The 17th.
(b) The 14th.
(c) The 16th.
(d) The 15th.

8. Who arrested Merrett's killer?
(a) Constable Tarrant.
(b) William Ward.
(c) Henry Burton.
(d) Officer Burton.

9. How many children did the Merretts have?
(a) Six.
(b) Two.
(c) Seven.
(d) Four.

10. How many supplements of the Oxford English Dictionary came out after the original?
(a) Two.
(b) Four.
(c) Six.
(d) Five.

11. In what area of Ceylon did the Minors set up their residence in 1834?
(a) Doa.
(b) Trivandrum.
(c) Manepay.
(d) Cochin.

12. Who would publish the first Oxford English Dictionary?
(a) Oxford University Press.
(b) Harper and Row.
(c) Academic Press.
(d) Penguin Books.

13. What did Mr. Trench argue about the major dictionaries available at the time?
(a) They were sufficient for disseminating the English language at the time.
(b) They had major defects.
(c) Only one had proper command of the English language.
(d) They were incorrect.

14. What were Merrett's killer's two former professional positions?
(a) Qualified surgeon and police officer..
(b) Professor and army officer.
(c) Police officer and professor.
(d) Army officer and qualified surgeon.

15. From what disease did William's mother die?
(a) Tuberculosis.
(b) Cancer.
(c) Lyme's disease.
(d) Typhoid fever.

Short Answer Questions

1. At what time where the three shots fired in the opening of the book?

2. Trench argued that dictionaries should be histories of the life span of every word and that these lives should be ______.

3. How did Murray spend most of his childhood?

4. How many years from Trench's speech about a new dictionary did the project actually get off the ground?

5. How many years later did the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary come out after the original?

(see the answer keys)

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