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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 does Bradbury say is like "an altar with ten-thousand attendants"?
(a) The incinerator.
(b) The city.
(c) The house.
(d) The yard.

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

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

4. Why does the house let the dog in?
(a) It is programmed to let in any dog or cat.
(b) It is an accident.
(c) It wants the dog to find the family.
(d) It recognizes the dog.

5. When the fire travels outside and up the sides of the house, it is described as what?
(a) Clever.
(b) Mischievous.
(c) Treacherous.
(d) Overwhelming.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Bradbury metaphorically compare the house to?

2. What is the house compared to as it burns to the ground?

3. The use of sentence fragments in the description of the spreading fire is probably intended to create what effect?

4. In the image of animals, the panther is said to be "cavorting." What is this panther doing?

5. What causes the house to temporarily "give up" as the fire spreads?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Bradbury use the dates on which the story takes place as a form of foreshadowing?

2. What is the difference between the focus of Teasdale's poem and the focus of Bradbury's short story?

3. Explain the allusion to Odysseus's dog and how it functions in the story.

4. What are the poses of the people in their silhouettes on the side of the house, and why are they important to notice?

5. How do the cleaning mice allude to Cinderella, and what is the purpose of this allusion?

6. Explain the purpose of the story's allusion to Longfellow's poem "The Children's Hour."

7. Explain what evidence there is that the house deliberately causes the dog's death.

8. Explain the inclusion of the Sara Teasdale poem in this story.

9. What is the intended effect of juxtaposing the images of the silhouettes with the description of the house's continued paranoia about intruders?

10. What is the purpose of ending the story with the house fire? Why not just end it with the reading of the Teasdale poem?

(see the answer keys)

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