View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the main fish that the Cricks and their neighbors catch for food?

2. What does Tom Crick find in the river that he thinks caused the bruise that killed Freddie Parr?

3. Which of the following does NOT draw Mary and Tom closer together?

4. What secret does Tom reveal to his students about Lewis Scott, the headmaster of the school?

5. Who hunted in Greenwich Park, where Tom and Mary sit in the evenings with their dog?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Chapter 26 is a long dissertation by Tom Crick about the mating habits of the eel. Recall three theories about how eels procreate that naturalists have advanced over the millennia.

3. In chapter 10, Tom Crick explains that he thinks the most important question is the question "why?" How does he use Louis XVI's fate to illustrate that point?

4. In chapter 31, Price tells Tom Crick about the student club he is part of. What club is that and what is its purpose?

5. In chapter 32, Tom Crick describes the relationship between Mary and Dick. Why does Mary say she wants to "educate" Dick and what is the version of events that she tells Tom?

6. In chapter 50, Harry Crick is bed-ridden in Tom's and Mary's first house in Gildsey. What made him ill?

7. In chapter 17, Tom Crick discusses his difficulties in trying to marry Mary Metcalf. What are the sources of those difficulties?

8. 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.

9. As he watches Dick ride off on his motorbike at the end of chapter 46, Tom states that Dick rides as if he has the legacy of the Atkinsons on his back. How so?

10. In chapter 34, Mary's experiment to teach Dick about love ends abruptly. How?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

One major conflict in Graham Swift's novel Waterland is the one between the narrator, Tom Crick, and the headmaster of the school where Tom teaches, Lewis Scott. Using specific examples from the book, show what the four root causes of that conflict are--a conflict about personality, a conflict about the school's reputation, a conflict about teaching style, and a conflict about the usefulness of teaching history. Analyze the differing visions of the future that Tom and the headmaster seem to harbor and the implications of each of those visions for the future of society.

Essay Topic 2

Analyze Tom's opinions about history and fate and explain how they relate to the relationship between the parents and children he has woven into his narrative. What might the symbolic meaning be of the fact that he and Mary cannot have a child of their own, and the only way for them to have something similar is for Mary to steal an infant and for Tom to claim Price as his son in the pub?

Essay Topic 3

Carefully consider the character Dick Crick in Graham Swift's novel Waterland. Trace what the reader learns about Dick as the story progresses that explains Dick's personality, actions, and passions. Finally, analyze what Dick's life might symbolize in Tom Crick's narrative about the Fens and its people.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,662 words (approx. 6 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample