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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is NOT one of the names the Atkinsons give their special-occasion ales?
(a) The Crimean Victory.
(b) The Empress of India.
(c) The Grand '51.
(d) The Golden Jubilee.

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

3. What does Tom Crick mean by the term "Natural History"?
(a) The study of human nature through stories to see what human beings truly are like.
(b) The history of the world as seen through the lense of science.
(c) The history of animals, plants, and other life forms.
(d) History as it would progress if humans didn't attempt to interfere in it constantly.

4. 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) Slumped over the table at Jack Parr's house.
(d) Sprawled in shrubbery by the side of the Ouse River Road.

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

6. Which of the following does NOT draw Mary and Tom closer together?
(a) They both grew up without a mother.
(b) They both have odd older brothers.
(c) They both take the same train to school every day.
(d) They both escape to the ruined windmill together in the afternoons.

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

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

9. 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) King Arthur and His Noble Knights.
(b) Hereward the Wake.
(c) The Last of the Mohicans.
(d) A Tale of Two Cities.

10. To what does Tom Crick compare the soil of the Fens?
(a) An obese matron.
(b) Pudding.
(c) Phlegm.
(d) Quicksand.

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

12. Which boy is most aggressive about asking the two girls to take their clothes off?
(a) Tom Crick.
(b) Freddie Parr.
(c) Peter Baine.
(d) Dick Crick.

13. What does Tom Crick think the French really celebrate on Bastille Day when they mark the beginning of the French Revolution?
(a) An event that was not nearly as important at the time as it is now made out to be.
(b) An event that never took place.
(c) The beginning of the Napoleonic Empire.
(d) The power of the mob over government.

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

15. 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) The thudding of his own heart.
(c) Machine gun fire.
(d) A bomber airplane.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. What does Tom Crick's new-coined term "histrionics" refer to?

3. Tom Crick's wife, Mary, has been sent to a mental institution. Why?

4. What is the River Tom Crick describes at great length to explain how the landscape of the novel's setting is formed?

5. What is Tom Crick's response to this revelation?

(see the answer keys)

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