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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 trait do Leland and Lenora have that is better than anyone else?

2. How does Polly react to Leland and Lenora's label?

3. What does Polly's mother do when Polly gets home?

4. Where does the narrator first encounter Thaddeus Blinn?

5. Who are Leland and Lenora?

Short Essay Questions

1. What happens to Polly at recess and how do Leland and Lenora help her?

2. What does Rowena do when she goes upstairs after her mother says no to Henry staying there?

3. What happens when Polly starts complaining to her mother the next morning about the burned toast?

4. What does Polly want to ask her mother and why is she reluctant to do so?

5. What do Agatha and Eunice try to do at tea the next day and how does Polly respond?

6. What does each story chronicle?

7. What types of people have sometimes come through Coven Tree and who is one such person the narrator mentions?

8. From what is the town's name derived?

9. With whom does Polly play near the river and how are her friends described?

10. How does Sam react to hearing Henry Piper's name?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the following:

1. What is a plot? What are the most important elements of a plot and their definition? Do all novels have a plot? Why or why not?

2. Write a brief synopsis of the plot of The Wish Maker, identifying where the various elements of the plot occur (Exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution or denouement). Do you find it difficult to identify the plot? Why or why not? What about the various elements of the plot?

3. Identify the major sub-plots and their elements in The Wish Maker. (The subplots may not contain every element of a major plot). Do the sub-plots add to the main plot? Why or why not. Are the sub-plots interesting in and of themselves? Why or why not?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss one of the following:

1. Thoroughly analyze how the setting informs the plot in "The Wish Maker".

2. Trace and analyze one major theme of "The Wish Maker". How is the theme represented by symbolism? By the characters' behaviors? By the action?

3. Trace and analyze two secondary themes of "The Wish Maker". How are the themes represented by symbolism? By the characters' behaviors? By the action?

Essay Topic 3

The central character in each tale experiences a particularly challenging confrontation with his / her inability to achieve a driving desire, impulsively uses the wishing card s/he purchased from Thaddeus Blinn, and begins to suffer the consequences of that impulse. In this context, structure and theme can be seen to interrelate, the principle of cause and effect (i.e. this action causing that reaction causing this action, and so on and so on) coming into play in order to reinforce the work's central thematic contention that blindly following impulse is dangerous.

1. Chose one of the characters of Polly, Rowena or Adam and discuss, in depths ways in which their desire could have been achieved without a wish card. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

2. Do you think some of the consequences of using the wish card might still have happened if the characters had never met Blinn? Why or why not? Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

3. Do you think impulsive behavior always has negative consequences? Why or why not? Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

(see the answer keys)

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