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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. What Biblical event does Aunt Nicey mention when the boys tell the family that they have a big surprise for them?

2. What replaces the tree in the yard?

3. 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?

4. What does Brother know is covering the casket that he makes Doodle touch?

5. Who is the author of "The Scarlet Ibis"?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

4. When "Brother" tells Doodle that he is going to teach Doodle to walk, what is Doodle's response?

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

6. How does Doodle die?

7. 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?

8. Toward the end of summer, how does "Brother" say that he and Doodle are feeling about the training, and why do they keep going?

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What role does prejudice against those with disabilities play in the outcome of "The Scarlet Ibis?" Write an essay in which you consider the family's reactions to Doodle and make an argument about what contribution their prejudices had to his death. Be sure to use textual evidence to support your claims.

Essay Topic 2

Brother says, on page 4, "There is within me (and with sadness I have watched it in others) a knot

of cruelty borne by the stream of love, much as our blood sometimes bears the

seed of our destruction, and at times I was mean to Doodle." Write an essay in which you explain the meaning of this quote and make an argument for or against the narrator's ideas about cruelty and love. Be sure to use textual evidence in support of your claims.

Essay Topic 3

What has the narrator learned from his brother's death? Use evidence from the text to demonstrate how his attitudes and beliefs have either stayed the same or changed between the time when he was a child and the time when he tells this story.

(see the answer keys)

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