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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. What is the lesson about history that Tom Crick draws from the study of eel mating behavior?
(a) The eel is much more adapted to life on earth than humans are.
(b) What human beings think of as major historical events makes little difference to other life on earth.
(c) While humans die, some life forms like the eel seem to live forever.
(d) The true future of mankind lies West of the Atlantic Ocean.

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

4. What about the scene at the Lode does NOT remind Tom of the later scene of Freddie Parr's death?
(a) A bottle drifting in the water.
(b) A boat-hook lying on the riverbank.
(c) Freddie Parr in the water.
(d) Dick standing on the wooden bridge.

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

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

7. What is the object that Dick Crick treats like it is a real person?
(a) His dead mother's sewing machine.
(b) His motorbike.
(c) His barge engine.
(d) His father's radio.

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

9. 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 keeps whisky bottles in his filing cabinet.
(d) The headmaster was once arrested for cross-dressing.

10. How did Tom's parents meet?
(a) His father was recovering from World War I in a mental asylum where his mother was a nurse.
(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 came home as a war hero and his mother was the prettiest girl at the parade.

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

12. 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.

13. What does Tom Crick tell his students is the difference between animals and humans?
(a) Animals don't kill each other out of jealousy.
(b) Humans can plan for the future.
(c) Humans have the ability to forgive each other.
(d) Humans tell each other stories.

14. What disaster befalls Sarah Atkinson when she is 37 years old?
(a) Her husband hits her in the head in a fit of rage, leaving her a living shell of her former self.
(b) She is caught on the second floor of her house when it burns down.
(c) She loses her long-awaited first child at its birth.
(d) Her husband dies and his relatives take all his money from her, leaving her destitute.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Ernest Atkinson, Tom's grandfather, do that marks the beginning of a long list of scandalous behavior?

2. Where do the Cricks find the body of Freddie Parr?

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

4. How does Tom eventually arrange to marry Mary, even though her father Harold Metcalf hates him?

5. On the day that Freddie Parr was found dead in the river, Mary confesses what to Tom?

(see the answer keys)

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