View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What lie does Bobby tell Laura's parents when he calls her house on the night they go with Leo to the drug dealer's house?

2. What is the last thing that the man Bobby shot says to Bobby within Laura's dream?

3. When Leo, Bobby, and Laura go to the drug dealer's house, where is the house located?

4. When Laura says she cannot allow herself to feel sorry for Leo's wife Shelley, what reason does she give?

5. What are Laura's usual days of work as Johnny's companion?

Short Essay Questions

1. What happens in the only dream Laura has about her dad?

2. How does Laura feel after the party at which she won a sexual bet and hung around with people ten years older?

3. What behavior of Laura's is particularly worrisome to Laura's mom and what does Laura plan to do about it?

4. What event inspires Laura to start helping the senior citizens in Twin Peaks?

5. What happens at the Double R Diner on Christmas Eve that makes Laura feel victorious?

6. What is Laura's relationship with Johnny?

7. How does Bobby respond when Laura calls him in the middle of the night after waking up from her death dream?

8. How is the theme of appearance versus reality evident in the scene in which Laura has just finished working on Donna's jacket and her mom comes into her room?

9. How do Bobby and Laura spend New Year's Eve of 1987?

10. What is the significance of the first sentence that Johnny speaks aloud?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Who or what is BOB? Conduct a formalist analysis using only the text of The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer. What is the significance of Laura's frequent indecision regarding whether BOB is real or imagined, whether her parents know about him or not, and other issues regarding his persona. Use quotes from the novel to prove your claims.

Essay Topic 2

In what ways does the novel provide a realistic depiction of how suffering sexual abuse can affect a young person's psyche and behavior. Include both concrete details from the novel and concrete details from your research in order to prove your claims.

Essay Topic 3

Explore the novel's status as an early example of a tie-in novel. How did the popularity of the series Twin Peaks and the novel The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer foreshadow the current proliferation of fan fiction, tie-in literature, comic conventions, and series spin-offs? What does this popularity demonstrate about the modern consumer of media and how do the novel's forewords by Mark Frost and David Lynch, the creators of the Twin Peaks series, connect to these elements?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,267 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample