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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 causes Brother to say that Doodle is a "burden in many ways" (3)?
(a) Doodle is getting too heavy for Brother to pull in the cart.
(b) The doctor has made a long list of rules for taking care of Doodle.
(c) Brother's friends make fun of Doodle.
(d) Doodle talks almost all the time.

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

3. In the place name "Horsehead Landing," what does the word "landing" mean?
(a) A flat place between two flights of stairs.
(b) A place where planes touch down.
(c) A dock or other place for boats to transfer people and cargo to land.
(d) The annual size of a catch of fish from a particular body of water.

4. Why does Mama make Brother return to the table when he is trying to get outside to see the ibis?
(a) He has knocked over his chair and forgotten to excuse himself.
(b) He was rude to Doodle and she wants him to apologize.
(c) His father was in the middle of saying something to him.
(d) He is not finished eating.

5. What deadline do Doodle and Brother set for Doodle's physical training?
(a) They want to be done by springtime.
(b) They want to be done by Christmas.
(c) They want to be done by the time Doodle starts school.
(d) They want to be done by Doodle's seventh birthday.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the doctor say about Doodle trying to move around?

2. What does Daddy have Mr. Heath make for Doodle?

3. Who is the only person who does not like the name "Doodle"?

4. Why does Brother treat Doodle roughly when he first starts taking him outside in his cart?

5. What replaces the tree in the yard?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What changes in the narrator's life when Daddy makes Doodle a cart?

3. When the narrator finally realizes that he will have to take Doodle everywhere he goes, where does he take Doodle, and what is Doodle's reaction?

4. Which character says "And bless the Pearsons, whose boy Joe was lost at Belleau Wood" (8) and what does this comment foreshadow?

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

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

8. 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?

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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