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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What game are Tom Crick, Freddie Parr, Peter Baine, and Terry Coe playing with Mary Metcalf and Shirley Alford on the banks of the Hockwell Lode as Dick Crick looks on?
(a) They ask each other silly riddles.
(b) A coy game of Show Me Yours, I'll Show You Mine.
(c) A raucous game of catch.
(d) Underwater hide and seek.

2. What does Tom compare his father to as every day he sees him trudge back and forth along the canal?
(a) A chained falcon.
(b) A tethered dog.
(c) A blind ox.
(d) A caged wolf.

3. What does Tom dream that he considers telling the headmaster about?
(a) He dreams of the headmaster drowning in a canal.
(b) He dreams of Price as the Prime Minister of Britain.
(c) He dreams of a woman wailing in a supermarket.
(d) He dreams of Mary as she was when she was 15.

4. What did Johannes Schmidt conclude about the difference between the European eel and the American eel?
(a) The American eel has a shorter lifespan.
(b) There is no difference, genetically.
(c) The American eel eats its young, whereas the European eel does not.
(d) The European eel has far more offspring.

5. What is the historical event that Tom Crick keeps returning to over and over again as he explains that history seems to move in a circle?
(a) The Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
(b) The Norman Invasion of 1066.
(c) The French Revolution of 1789.
(d) The Sarajevo Assassination of 1914.

6. What is the name of the student Tom Crick butts heads with the most?
(a) George.
(b) Dick.
(c) Price.
(d) Jerome.

7. How old is Sarah Atkinson when she dies?
(a) 99 years.
(b) 68 years.
(c) 37 years.
(d) 92 years.

8. Lewis Scott, the headmaster at the school where Tom Crick teaches, thinks history should be considered part of what other field?
(a) Liberal Arts.
(b) General Studies.
(c) Civics.
(d) Geography.

9. What does the phrase "in loco parentis" mean?
(a) In place of the parents.
(b) According to the logic of the parents.
(c) Because of parental insanity.
(d) Placed in parentheses.

10. Why does Tom Crick decide to study the history of the Fens?
(a) Because the only scholarship to university he can get is for Fenland history.
(b) To avoid thinking about the history that is in the making as World War II rages.
(c) Because the only history books he can find during the Battle for Britain are local ones.
(d) Because it is the only history that holds any fascination for him.

11. What does Ernest Atkinson's maid Jane Shaw think she saw in the old Atkinson townhouse as the brewery was burning?
(a) Ernest Atkinson packing cans of leftover lighting fluid into a satchel.
(b) A black cat with its tail on fire.
(c) Helen Atkinson laughing as she watches the brewery collapse from her window.
(d) The ghost of Sarah Atkinson, shouting.

12. How did Tom's parents meet?
(a) His father came home as a war hero and his mother was the prettiest girl at the parade.
(b) His father delivered a crate of eels to the house where Tom's mother lived.
(c) His father heard her shouting one day because she'd sprained an ankle and rescued her.
(d) His father was recovering from World War I in a mental asylum where his mother was a nurse.

13. What does Tom notice for the first time when Mary struggles with Freddie Parr's prank?
(a) That Dick is interested in Mary and that Mary is interested in Dick.
(b) That Terry Coe is afraid of eels.
(c) That Freddie Parr is a drunkard.
(d) That Mary is ticklish.

14. What sort of proof does Mary offer that Dick cannot be the father of her child?
(a) Ideological.
(b) Psychological.
(c) Theological.
(d) Physiological.

15. How does Tom react to Mary's statement that "everything has changed" with Freddie's death.
(a) He says nothing and watches Mary run off into the night.
(b) He slaps Mary and shouts,
(c) He tears up lumps of grass and angrily throws them around.
(d) He laughs uncontrollably.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which of the following is NOT a theory that biologists have put forward about how eels reproduce?

2. What competition does Mary demand the boys take part in before she takes off her last piece of clothing for the winner?

3. Henry Crick, Tom's father, is obsessed with one question about Freddie's death that he repeats over and over again. What is it?

4. What does Tom Crick think the French really celebrate on Bastille Day when they mark the beginning of the French Revolution?

5. Tom confronts Price about his frequent interruptions during class. What question does Price's reluctance about history boil down to?

(see the answer keys)

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