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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Which of the boys' bodies does Mary appear to be most interested in?
(a) Dick Crick.
(b) Freddie Parr.
(c) Terry Coe.
(d) Tom Crick.

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

3. What does Dick do when he finds the bottle?
(a) He screams and later says he saw Sarah Atkinson's ghost.
(b) He hides it in a wooden chest with a lock in the attic.
(c) He threatens Tom not to tell anyone about it or he will hurt Tom.
(d) He ties it to the handle of his motorbike with a piece of string.

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

5. What about Mary strikes Tom when he returns from Germany at the end of World War II to marry her?
(a) How frail and vulnerable she seems.
(b) How much more beautiful she has become.
(c) How much of her old spark and curiosity she has lost.
(d) How tough and independent she has become.

6. What is Ernest Atkinson's reaction to the fire?
(a) He frantically alerts the fire brigade, but they are too drunk to help.
(b) He shows no reaction and drives off to his country estate.
(c) He sings loudly with the other revelers as the brewery collapses.
(d) He weeps openly on front of the entire town.

7. What does Tom compare the sound of Dick's motorcycle to the evening Mary has broken up with Tom?
(a) The growling of an angry beast.
(b) Machine gun fire.
(c) A bomber airplane.
(d) The thudding of his own heart.

8. What did the inquest decide was the cause of Freddie Parr's death?
(a) Freddie had been hit on the head with a bottle.
(b) Freddie had committed suicide.
(c) Freddie had been robbed and drowned by thugs.
(d) Freddie was drunk, fell in the water, and could not swim.

9. Whom does Tom Crick quote as saying, "we cannot step into the same river twice?"
(a) Dionysius the Areopagite.
(b) Socrates.
(c) Cicero.
(d) Heraclitus of Ephesus.

10. What does Tom Crick find in the river that he thinks caused the bruise that killed Freddie Parr?
(a) A wrench Dick uses to fix his motorbike.
(b) A cricket bat with an odd indentation and a label that reads F.P.
(c) A metal ball from a slingshot Tom has seen Jack Parr use to kill birds.
(d) A beer bottle from the defunct Atkinson brewery.

11. 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) Underwater hide and seek.
(b) A coy game of Show Me Yours, I'll Show You Mine.
(c) They ask each other silly riddles.
(d) A raucous game of catch.

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

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

14. What is one of the books Tom Crick reads that he finds in the trove of books collected by his great-aunts Louisa and Dora?
(a) A Tale of Two Cities.
(b) King Arthur and His Noble Knights.
(c) Hereward the Wake.
(d) The Last of the Mohicans.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. The headmaster of the school where Tom Crick teaches history thinks Tom should retire from his job. Why?

2. Which one of the following is NOT one of the ghosts that is said to haunt the marches along the River Leem?

3. Why does his most outspoken student reject Tom Crick's attempt to teach the class history?

4. What tells Tom that he and Mary must finish their argument quickly because the park is about to close?

5. How does Tom react to Mary's statement that "everything has changed" with Freddie's death.

(see the answer keys)

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