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

Short Answer Questions

1. If there was five seconds between lightning and thunder, how far away would the storm be?

2. How many nests might a single cuckoo lay eggs?

3. Who did the author take for a walk around Wicken Fen?

4. In "The Observatory," what did a swan do when it approached Macdonald?

5. In "A Cuckoo in the House," over the past quarter of a century, how many cuckoos had been lost?

Short Essay Questions

1. When Macdonald and her brother were children, how did they observe blue tits?

2. What did the author search for in a disused chalk quarry?

3. What did the author and her mother see and hear in "Berries" while running errands?

4. What is swan upping?

5. How does the author describe the painting Swan Upping at Cookham?

6. What happened to the orioles in Britain?

7. How did the author's father tell her that she could figure out how far away a storm was?

8. What did the author see on display in a university museum in Rostock, Germany?

9. What were the nestboxes like that Macdonald ordered for house martins?

10. Where were peregrine falcons nesting in "The Falcon and the Tower"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

As a child, why did Macdonald not understand how different animals were from her? What did the author discover throughout the years that could and could not be learned from animals?

Essay Topic 2

Many people, including Macdonald, feed birds and wildlife. What is supplemental feeding as it relates to birds and other wildlife? What are the positive and negative impacts of supplementing the food of birds and animals?

Essay Topic 3

The author bought nestboxes for house martins. Why did the author buy nestboxes? How did they help her and the martins? What did the nestboxes reveal about anthropomorphism?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 922 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample