View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. 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 Mary is ticklish.
(d) That Freddie Parr is a drunkard.

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

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

4. What is the motto of the New Brewery in Gildsey?
(a) Ex Aqua Fermentum.
(b) Sine Qua Non.
(c) E Pluribus Unum.
(d) Quid Pro Quo.

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

6. What does Ernest Atkinson do that marks the first step in his family's economic decline?
(a) He closes the Atkinson brewery.
(b) He takes a ruinous Grand Tour of Europe.
(c) He sells Kessling Hall, their estate.
(d) He sells the Water Transport Company.

7. What is the worst thing Tom Crick can imagine?
(a) Humans stop being curious.
(b) Nuclear weapons destroy the earth.
(c) Humans forget their own history.
(d) Mary stops loving him.

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

9. 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) Geography.
(c) Civics.
(d) General Studies.

10. Who does Tom Crick think his wife Mary is having a love affair with in her old age?
(a) His brother Dick.
(b) God.
(c) Nature.
(d) Their neighbor's son George.

11. What does Tom Crick's new-coined term "histrionics" refer to?
(a) Throwing an angry fit because what has happened is history and cannot be changed.
(b) Changing history through technology.
(c) Being hysterically enthusiastic about something.
(d) The combined study of history and economics.

12. What was Freddie Parr's father, Jack Parr, infamous for in the Gildsey area?
(a) His habit of stealing livestock off the river barges.
(b) His ability to smuggle liquor out of an American military base nearby.
(c) His tendency to get into fights with the local barman.
(d) His heckling of young women who worked in the fields.

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

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

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

Short Answer Questions

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

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

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

4. Whom does Tom Crick quote as saying, "we cannot step into the same river twice?"

5. What is the name of the ale Ernest Atkinson brews that seems to cause the end of any respect for him in Gildsey because it is too good?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 760 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample