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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What word used in Chapter 3 means characterized by low buffoonery?
(a) Intrinsic.
(b) Scurrilous.
(c) Articulate.
(d) Epidemic.

2. What color does the green sea turn in the excerpt from Chapter 4 called "Homo Borealis"?
(a) White.
(b) Gray.
(c) Red.
(d) Black.

3. As Howard stands in the silt of the pond outlet in the woods in Chapter 3, the narrator describes the sticks and branches on the pond bed as feeling like what to him?
(a) Stones.
(b) Snakes.
(c) Bones.
(d) Engine parts.

4. What kind of car is Nikki Bocheki driving when he visits George in Chapter 4?
(a) A red Alfa Romeo.
(b) A black Rolls Royce.
(c) A mint-green Cadillac.
(d) A blue Jeep.

5. What does Howard describe his father doing all of the time in Howard's childhood in Chapter 3?
(a) Reading history books.
(b) Working in his laboratory.
(c) Composing sermons.
(d) Writing law articles.

6. Who does Howard describe paddling a canoe through the woods behind his family's house just before his father is taken away in Chapter 3?
(a) Old Sabbatis.
(b) Sam.
(c) Charlie.
(d) Old Red.

7. What religion is Megan's mother said to be in Chapter 4?
(a) Jewish.
(b) Mormon.
(c) Baptist.
(d) Catholic.

8. Approximately how old is George as he lay dying in the novel?
(a) 60.
(b) 70.
(c) 80.
(d) 90.

9. Howard says of his father in Chapter 3, "The world fell away from my father the way he fell away from us. We became" what?
(a) His ghost.
(b) His dream.
(c) His regret.
(d) His suffering.

10. What word used in Chapter 4 refers to incised carving, or ornamentation with a figure or design sunk below the surface?
(a) Relief.
(b) Particulate.
(c) Proscenium.
(d) Intaglio.

11. What does the narrator describe opening in 1953 in Chapter 4?
(a) The World's Fair.
(b) The new interstate highway.
(c) The first Four Seasons Hotel.
(d) Disney World.

12. The Zulu people that are mentioned in the novel are an ethnic group from where?
(a) South America.
(b) Eastern Europe.
(c) Southern Africa.
(d) Northern Africa.

13. What book is cited with the description of the inner workings of a clock in Chapter 4?
(a) The Time of Finding Time.
(b) The Old Man and the Sea.
(c) The Reasonable Horologist.
(d) Alice in Wonderland.

14. What year is it when Howard dies in Chapter 4?
(a) 1985.
(b) 1991.
(c) 1965.
(d) 1972.

15. The narrator says of George as he dies in Chapter 4, "His bloodless legs were hard like wood." What literary device is used in this sentence?
(a) Onomatopoeia.
(b) Literary allusion.
(c) Forced perspective.
(d) Simile.

Short Answer Questions

1. What shoes does Howard wear when he goes into the woods to look for his father after he's been taken away in Chapter 3?

2. How much money is hidden in George's workbench downstairs in Chapter 4?

3. What word from Chapter 3 means characterized by length of speech or wordiness, or scattered?

4. What word used in Chapter 3 means concerned with relatively minor, irrelevant, or superficial aspects of something?

5. What does Howard's mother cook for breakfast the morning after Howard's father has been taken away in Chapter 3?

(see the answer keys)

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