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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. 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 blind ox.
(c) A tethered dog.
(d) A caged wolf.

2. Tom Crick mentions a similarity his father found between his home and the battlefields of World War I. What is that similarity?
(a) The mud felt the same and eels swam in the pools.
(b) The army served the same ale the Atkinsons brewed in Gildsey.
(c) The pretty girls in the town were disdainful of him.
(d) The men were silent and preferred to keep to themselves.

3. What mesmerized King Canute as he was rowed past Ely?
(a) The sound of the sea breeze as it rushed through the reeds.
(b) The singing of the swans in the fens.
(c) The chanting of the monks at the Ely monastery.
(d) The beauty of the girls washing laundry near the riverbank.

4. What is the main fish that the Cricks and their neighbors catch for food?
(a) Trout.
(b) Salmon.
(c) Carp.
(d) Eel.

5. What is the agreement between Helen and Ernest Atkinson in exchange for Ernest allowing Helen to marry Harry Crick?
(a) That Helen will become a nurse at the Kessling Hall asylum.
(b) That Helen will have Ernest's child.
(c) That Helen will help Ernest commit suicide.
(d) That Helen will find a way to assuage Sarah Atkinson's ghost.

6. Who says, "explaining's a way of avoiding the facts while you pretend to get near to them?"
(a) Price.
(b) Lewis Scott.
(c) Tom Crick.
(d) Mary Crick.

7. What is the term Tom Crick keeps using to refer to Mary's attitude towards the world when she was an adolescent?
(a) Curious.
(b) Eager.
(c) Passive.
(d) Aloof.

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

9. What does Ernest Atkinson convert his manor Kessling Hall into?
(a) A school for orphans.
(b) A hospital for the wounded of World War I.
(c) An asylum for the mentally ill.
(d) A museum in honor of Sarah Atkinson.

10. Johannes Schmidt, whose theory about eels and their mating habits is considered the most accurate one, thought that eels mate where?
(a) In river springs.
(b) The Arctic Ocean.
(c) The Sargasso Sea.
(d) The Gulf of Mexico.

11. What medical condition is Tom afraid that Mary might have?
(a) Alzheimer's disease.
(b) Bipolar disorder.
(c) Diabetes.
(d) Schizophrenia.

12. What does Ernest Atkinson do with the three remaining steam ships he owns?
(a) He names them after his daughter, Helen I, Helen II, and Helen III.
(b) He converts them into pleasure cruise ships.
(c) He sells them to the city of Gildsey for the use of the fire brigade.
(d) He donates them to the army to aid in the war effort.

13. How does Freddie Parr's father Jack react to the ruling by the court that Freddie's death was an accident?
(a) He goes to sit on the train tracks to commit suicide, but no train appears.
(b) He walks out of the court room and is never seen again.
(c) He curses the judge and accuses Tom Crick of killing Freddie.
(d) He has a heart attack in the court room and dies on the spot.

14. Where do the Cricks find the body of Freddie Parr?
(a) Hung from the rafters in the Cricks' barn.
(b) Drifting along the canal at the Atkinson Lock.
(c) Sprawled in shrubbery by the side of the Ouse River Road.
(d) Slumped over the table at Jack Parr's house.

15. What secret does Tom reveal to his students about Lewis Scott, the headmaster of the school?
(a) The headmaster cheated to receive his university degree.
(b) The headmaster is having an affair with his secretary, Miss Plum.
(c) The headmaster was once arrested for cross-dressing.
(d) The headmaster keeps whisky bottles in his filing cabinet.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is NOT one of the names the Atkinsons give their special-occasion ales?

2. What about the scene at the Lode does NOT remind Tom of the later scene of Freddie Parr's death?

3. What does the phrase "in loco parentis" mean?

4. Who hunted in Greenwich Park, where Tom and Mary sit in the evenings with their dog?

5. What was Freddie Parr's father, Jack Parr, infamous for in the Gildsey area?

(see the answer keys)

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