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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. The father sees a house and decides to explore it while his son sleeps -- what does he leave beside the boy?

2. After the father finds his son, who had wandered off while he was asleep, what does the son tell the father he has found?

3. Once the father fills his basket and begins to leave the house, what does he look back and realize is by the house?

4. How does the father get the men that approach them on the road to leave?

5. In Chapter 35, how is the son starting to change?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe three things that the father and son find of use in Chapters 36-40.

2. Describe one example from Chapters 36-40 that demonstrates how the father is becoming more reliant on the son's opinion.

3. Give an example from Chapters 26-30 of where the author uses foreshadowing.

4. Describe how the son shows his increasing influence on the father in Chapter 31.

5. Analyze the son's reaction when, in Chapters 36-40, he realizes that the father is becoming more reliant on his opinion.

6. Describe how the author generates credibility to the father's paranoia about the world.

7. Recall an example from Chapter 31 that demonstrates how the father is dealing with the son growing up.

8. Give an example from Chapters 21-25 that describes the son's naivety.

9. Recall how the father displays his paranoid attitude again while he and the son are staying in the hidden cellar.

10. Describe how the father makes lamps before he and the son enter the hidden cellar.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In The Road, the cities are deserted or destroyed, plant life is gone, animals have disappeared. Something catastrophic has happened to the world. Examine the conflict of Person vs. Nature, citing examples from the text that demonstrate how the characters are up against the forces of nature.

Essay Topic 2

The father insists that there are good and bad guys in the world, leading the reader to believe a "bad" group of people are responsible for the destruction. How are good people set apart from bad people in the story? What are the major characteristics that good people have that bad people don't? How does the father distinguish between the good and bad people?

Essay Topic 3

From the very beginning of The Road, the author does not give the father and son names, he gives them the generic labels of "the man or father" and "the boy or son."

Part 1) Why did the author choose not to give his characters names?

Part 2) How do the characters' basic names of "the man" and "the boy" affect the way the reader relates to them?

Part 3) How would the reader view the text if the characters had been given names?

(see the answer keys)

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