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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Which word used to describe the protagonist in Part V means having or showing little or no emotion?
(a) Ancestry
(b) Appreciate
(c) Flounder
(d) Apathetic

2. When the protagonist’s second fire fails, he decides to attempt to do what with the dog?
(a) Kill it
(b) Feed it
(c) Follow it
(d) Send it for help

3. Which word from Part IV means to draw back; start or shrink back, as in alarm, horror, or disgust?
(a) Manipulation
(b) Recoil
(c) Success
(d) Flounder

4. Which word, used to describe the snow in Part V, means something that covers, envelops, or conceals?
(a) Perimeter
(b) Horizon
(c) Cirque
(d) Mantle

5. What color is a central motif in To Build a Fire?
(a) White
(b) Green
(c) Red
(d) Blue

6. Which of the following stylistic elements is used throughout To Build a Fire?
(a) Literary allusion
(b) Flashback
(c) Repetition
(d) Biblical allusion

7. Which word from Part V refers to any of the main branches of a tree?
(a) Bough
(b) Root
(c) Twig
(d) Trunk

8. After falling through the ice, the protagonist believes this mishap will delay him for how long in reaching his destination?
(a) 1 hour
(b) 45 minutes
(c) 20 minutes
(d) 2 hours

9. Which word from Part V means skillful or artful management?
(a) Flounder
(b) Peremptorily
(c) Conflagration
(d) Manipulation

10. Part V of the story marks what point in the plot structure?
(a) Denouement
(b) Climax
(c) Exposition
(d) Falling action

11. What of the protagonist’s “ebbed away and sank down into the recesses of his body” in Part IV?
(a) His thoughts
(b) His blood
(c) His spirit
(d) His warmth

12. How does the ending of the earlier version of To Build a Firediffer from the later and more popularized version?
(a) The protagonist lives
(b) The old-timer shows up
(c) The dog dies
(d) Bob arrives

13. What other word does the narrator use for sulphur in Part V?
(a) Keystone
(b) Thermastone
(c) Brimstone
(d) Sparkstone

14. The scent of what makes the dog back away and bristle in the end of Part VI?
(a) Urine
(b) Burnt flesh
(c) Biscuits
(d) Death

15. According to the narrator in Part IV, “The old-timer had been very serious in laying down the law that no man must travel alone in the Klondike after” what?
(a) 0 degrees
(b) Fifteen below
(c) Thirty below
(d) Fifty below

Short Answer Questions

1. The protagonist pictures the boys doing what the next day as he drifts into death in Part VI?

2. When the protagonist falls a second time and the dog sits in front of him, how does the protagonist feel about the “warmth and security of the animal” in Part VI?

3. The dog goes to find what in the end of the story?

4. What does the protagonist intend on rubbing his feet with in Part IV?

5. In describing the protagonist’s thought of death in Part VI, the narrator states: “Sometimes it pushed itself forward and demanded to be heard, but he thrust it back and strove to think of other things.” This is an example of what literary technique?

(see the answer keys)

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