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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. Where does Tom put the bottle that he found drifting in the water after Freddie Parr's death?
(a) In Dick's room, where Dick would see it.
(b) Out by the road, where he hopes the police constable will see it.
(c) He accidentally leaves it on the kitchen table.
(d) He ties it to the tail pipe of Dick's motorbike.

2. What does Ernest Atkinson's maid Jane Shaw think she saw in the old Atkinson townhouse as the brewery was burning?
(a) The ghost of Sarah Atkinson, shouting.
(b) Helen Atkinson laughing as she watches the brewery collapse from her window.
(c) Ernest Atkinson packing cans of leftover lighting fluid into a satchel.
(d) A black cat with its tail on fire.

3. How old is Sarah Atkinson when she dies?
(a) 99 years.
(b) 92 years.
(c) 68 years.
(d) 37 years.

4. 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.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. 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?

2. What does Ernest Atkinson convert his manor Kessling Hall into?

3. What causes the soldiers at the 1915 Royal Cambrideshire Militia parade to stumble out of formation?

4. Why does Tom Crick decide to study the history of the Fens?

5. What mesmerized King Canute as he was rowed past Ely?

Short Essay Questions

1. In chapter 2, a student called Price interrupts Tom Crick, the history teacher, to tell him what about history?

2. In chapter 3, the narrator discusses the history of the Fens in eastern England and human attempts to drain them and make them fit for agriculture. "Strictly speaking," the narrator says what about the effort to "reclaim" the Fens?

3. Briefly discuss how, in chapter 44, his interview with the police unravels Tom's earlier ideas about teaching the facts of history.

4. What is the significance of phlegm for the body according to chapter 51?

5. In chapter 43, Tom Crick parts from Price shouting "don't let him do it!" What is he referring to and what theme that has run through the novel is this a culmination of?

6. in chapter 15, Tom Crick gives a history of the River Ouse and the Fenlands in its river valley. List at least three details from the river's history.

7. What is the surprise Tom Crick encounters when he stands up to speak at the end of chapter 48?

8. In chapter 35, Tom Crick returns home from a day of teaching to find Mary has done what?

9. In chapter 42, a new-found confidante helps Mary to get something Mary wants. What is that?

10. Chapter 49 is one more chapter Tom Crick spends lamenting what happens when idealists begin revolutions and lose sight of their ideals. What is that example?

(see the answer keys)

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