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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. How old is King?

2. What is NOT an errand that Ava runs on the day she visits her mother in the section that begins on page 49?

3. Ava thinks to herself that whenever she is "about to see [her] mother," her what "wobbles" (50)?

4. What is the name of Josephine's husband?

5. The narrator reveals that Josephine began her life as a what?

Short Essay Questions

1. Discuss two instances when Ava engages in denial regarding Grandma Martha's behaviors.

2. What circumstances led to Josephine's mother remaining emotionally distant from Josephine?

3. What action of Josephine's causes Aristide to surrender to her way of thinking?

4. What clues about Josephine are contained within the photograph belonging to Ava?

5. What aspect of Gladys's health worries Ava, though she tries not to think about it?

6. What epigraph does Margaret Wilkerson Sexton use at the beginning of the novel and what is one theme contained within the epigraph?

7. How did young Josephine come to be a member of the Revisioners?

8. For what event is Josephine preparing in 1924 when we first meet her?

9. Josephine says she had been sure that her eldest daughter would remain by her side throughout their lives. What happens to prevent this outcome?

10. What major career change did Ava's mother Gladys make once she had practiced law for 20 years and why?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Analyze the ways in which the themes of adaptability and resignation appear within Sexton’s novel The Revisioners. What message is Sexton sending about these two themes over the course of the narrative?

Essay Topic 2

Read a lengthy interview with Sexton. Write an essay explaining the connection between several of Sexton’s answers and a major theme presented within the text of The Revisioners.

Essay Topic 3

Perform a biographical criticism of The Revisioners by researching Sexton's life and work. Be sure to create a strong and specific claim focused on this particular book and then support that claim with quotes from the book and from your research of Sexton.

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