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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. What do Doodle and Brother leave to do after lunch?
(a) Climb vines at Old Woman Swamp.
(b) Box at Old Woman Swamp.
(c) Go rowing at Horsehead Landing.
(d) Search to see if they can find the ibis's mate.

2. What is "Doodle" short for?
(a) Cock-a-doodle-doo.
(b) Doodlebug.
(c) Nothing--it refers to a drawing Doodle did.
(d) Yankee Doodle.

3. Why does Brother cry when everyone hugs him for teaching Doodle to walk?
(a) He is afraid he might have hurt Doodle and they will find out.
(b) He knows that he did it for the wrong reasons.
(c) He is so relieved that everything went just right.
(d) He rarely gets the family's attention.

4. What do the "strange names" (8) talked about at the family dinner party allude to?
(a) They are the neighbor families who have lost children in World War I.
(b) They are the locations of World War I battles.
(c) They are the places that the family plans to travel in Europe.
(d) They are the names of family members buried in the family graveyard.

5. Doodle has an active mind and talks a lot. What is his family's reaction to this?
(a) They suggest that he might become a writer.
(b) They ignore him.
(c) They make fun of him.
(d) They are jealous of him.

Short Answer Questions

1. After the incident where Brother makes Doodle touch the casket, what does Doodle cry out over and over?

2. What area is the ibis native to?

3. In the first sentence of the story, what meaning does "clove" have in "It was in the clove of seasons" (1)?

4. Who gives Doodle his nickname?

5. How does Brother respond to Doodle's love for natural beauty?

Short Essay Questions

1. What images of death does the story open with?

2. Whenever Doodle wants to quit trying to learn how to walk, how does "Brother" motivate him to keep trying?

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

4. How old is Doodle when he learns to walk, and why is his age relevant to him learning to walk?

5. When Doodle collapses during their "training," what conversation do he and "Brother" have and how does the conversation show their different attitudes about Doodle's disability?

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

7. When the family get excited and try to hug "Brother" for teaching Doodle to walk, how does "Brother" react, and why?

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

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

10. What changes in Doodle's living situation when he learns to crawl?

(see the answer keys)

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