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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is strange about how the nursery reacts to the fire?
(a) The nursery is the only room that does not turn on its sprinklers.
(b) The nursery deliberately opens its windows during the fire.
(c) The animal images seem to be aware of the fire.
(d) The voice in the nursery walls begins singing an old children's song.

2. What does the house provide after dinner?
(a) Music and hot chocolate.
(b) A warm bath.
(c) Games and snacks.
(d) A fire and a cigar.

3. Bradbury mentions that martinis "manifested" on tables. What did the martinis do?
(a) Appeared.
(b) Evaporated.
(c) Sparkled.
(d) Spilled.

4. When the narrator tells readers that it seems like the voice-clock is worried that no one will get up, this is an example of what technique?
(a) Foreshadowing.
(b) Flashback.
(c) Imagery.
(d) Metaphor.

5. What causes the fire to eventually win the battle with the house?
(a) The fire reaches the house's "brain" in the attic.
(b) The wind creates flames so intense the house cannot fight them.
(c) The house stops defending itself.
(d) The rain stops.

6. "The house tried to save itself" is an example of which technique?
(a) Alliteration.
(b) Onomatopoeia.
(c) Personification.
(d) Paradox.

7. What does the house do with the uneaten breakfast?
(a) Leaves it sitting on the table with the rest of the uneaten meals.
(b) Puts it in the refrigerator.
(c) Throws it away.
(d) Scrapes it into the dog's dish.

8. What is the likely purpose of inserting the house's "dialogue" ("Help, help! Fire! Run, run!") into the scene that describes the fire consuming the house?
(a) It reminds the reader of the death of the family.
(b) It clarifies the order in which the house is burning, because the house can still "speak."
(c) It reminds the reader that the house is a living thing.
(d) It reinforces how helpless and pointless the technology is in the face of nature's power.

9. What happens to the dog when it cannot get into the kitchen?
(a) It leaves the house.
(b) It runs through the house breaking things.
(c) It dies.
(d) It scratches through the door.

10. What does the dog do once it gets inside the house?
(a) It looks through the house for the family's other dog.
(b) It begins eating the spoiled food.
(c) It falls asleep in the nursery.
(d) It barks at every door.

11. What does the breakfast stove make for breakfast?
(a) Pancakes and bacon.
(b) Eggs, toast, and bacon.
(c) Eggs and hash browns.
(d) Pancakes.

12. Which is the best descriptor of the mood of the scene in the study, where the poem is read and music plays as a cigar slowly burns down to ash?
(a) Frantic and chaotic.
(b) Haunting and ironic.
(c) Tragic and melodramatic.
(d) Amusing and nostalgic.

13. What is the probable purpose of emphasizing the roundness of the smoke plume and the great quantity of smoke?
(a) There is an implied comparison to a woman's skirts.
(b) It reminds the reader of a nuclear explosion.
(c) It points out how little chance the house really had.
(d) It reinforces the "technology versus nature" motif.

14. In the sentence "The morning house lay empty," there is an example of which technique?
(a) Metaphor.
(b) Passive voice.
(c) Punning.
(d) Parallelism.

15. What is the reaction of nature to the end of human existence in the poem "There Will Come Soft Rains"?
(a) Nature is puzzled and uncertain.
(b) Nature grieves the loss of humankind.
(c) Nature is unaware and indifferent.
(d) Nature celebrates the end of humankind.

Short Answer Questions

1. In which city does the story take place?

2. What is the name of the family that owned the house?

3. To what story do the robot mice allude?

4. What is the first thing that the voice-clock announces?

5. In the section about the nursery, Bradbury mentions the "sprockets" in the walls. What are "sprockets"?

(see the answer keys)

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