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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. 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 was once arrested for cross-dressing.
(c) The headmaster is having an affair with his secretary, Miss Plum.
(d) The headmaster keeps whisky bottles in his filing cabinet.

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

4. How does Tom react to Mary's statement that "everything has changed" with Freddie's death.
(a) He tears up lumps of grass and angrily throws them around.
(b) He slaps Mary and shouts,
(c) He says nothing and watches Mary run off into the night.
(d) He laughs uncontrollably.

5. Tom thinks that people who focus on ideals like the Declaration of the Rights of Man instead of the details of the French Revolution forget what important fact?
(a) That no man is an island and no idea exists outside of time.
(b) That the revolution included barricades, bloodshed, and the guillotine.
(c) That the revolutionaries were hypocrites.
(d) The importance of the birthday of Louis XVI.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is it that Tom decides he must find at all cost?

2. Tom confronts Price about his frequent interruptions during class. What question does Price's reluctance about history boil down to?

3. What does Dick do when he finds the bottle?

4. What about Mary strikes Tom when he returns from Germany at the end of World War II to marry her?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. Chapter 39 is about Mary's reaction to her pregnancy and to Tom's joy about it. What does Tom find her doing and what is the reason she gives?

2. In chapter 19, Tom Crick describes the beginning of the decline of his grandfather, Ernest Atkinson. Discuss what caused that decline.

3. In chapter 27, Tom Crick explains what he means by Natural History. What does he think it is a study of, truly?

4. In chapter 22, the role of Ernest Atkinson in the events of Coronation Day is ambiguous. Please describe the events of Coronation Day and why they appear to have happened.

5. Who does the chapter title "The Saviour of the World" refer to, and what does it mean?

6. In chapter 41, Mary makes a decision to see someone for help with her miscarriage. Whom does Mary want to go and see?

7. In chapter 24, Tom, Dick, Freddie Parr, Mary Metcalf, and a few other kids are playing together near the water. What is the importance of the eel to all the events that transpire afterwards?

8. In chapter 45, what is the symbolic significance of where Dick elected to hide the key from Tom to their mother's chest?

9. Chapter 9 details the rise of the Atkinson family through various activities and involvements. After Tom Atkinson marries Sarah Turnbull. Sarah becomes a pivotal character in the Atkinson story. How?

10. In chapter 25, Tom Crick gauges the reaction of his students at his racy revelations. What does he observe about rebellion in this context?

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