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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In the first sentence of the story, what meaning does "clove" have in "It was in the clove of seasons" (1)?
(a) The space between the two parts of an animal's hoof.
(b) A dried flower bud that is also a spice.
(c) One section of a bulb of garlic.
(d) The past tense of "cleave."

2. How old is Doodle when he begins to try to move himself?
(a) 4.
(b) 1.
(c) 2.
(d) 3.

3. Just before they notice the ibis, what does Doodle contradict Brother about?
(a) He says that he will be ready to help harvest the cotton.
(b) He says that the other boys in school will not care if he is different.
(c) He says that he heard a rain-frog.
(d) He says that they are done with his physical training.

4. After the incident where Brother makes Doodle touch the casket, what does Doodle cry out over and over?
(a) "Am I going to die?"
(b) "Why?"
(c) "Don't leave me."
(d) "I hate you."

5. What does Brother know is covering the casket that he makes Doodle touch?
(a) Bird droppings.
(b) Spiderwebs.
(c) Poison.
(d) Cockroaches.

Short Answer Questions

1. What area is the ibis native to?

2. What is Brother's real name?

3. The phrase, "[T]he oriole nest in the elm was untenanted and rocked back and forth like an empty cradle" (1) is an example of which two literary techniques?

4. What are Doodle's last words?

5. When Brother says, of the hope they had when they started training, "Success lay at the end of summer like a pot of gold" (7), what should the reader understand from this simile?

Short Essay Questions

1. When the boys are almost ready to show the family that Doodle can walk and they keep hinting that they have a big secret, what does Nicey tell them and what is its thematic significance?

2. When they are eating lunch on the day the ibis appears, what argument are the brothers having?

3. What future do "Brother" and Doodle imagine for themselves at Old Woman Sawmp?

4. When Mama tells "Brother" that Doodle might be mentally disabled, what does "Brother" plan to do, and what changes his mind?

5. In what ways is the summer of 1918 hard on the family's crops?

6. What does the narrator make Doodle do in the barn loft, and how does Doodle react?

7. How does "Brother" go about teaching Doodle to walk?

8. When Doodle and "Brother" take up telling one another stories to pass the time, what story does Doodle tell?

9. How does Doodle die?

10. When school is getting closer, at the end of the summer, how is Doodle doing with his physical training, and what is the result?

(see the answer keys)

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