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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 job does Paps finally get?
(a) A security guard, the night watch.
(b) At the brewery, with Ma.
(c) The gas station.
(d) An automotive shop.

2. What does Ma compare to the boys' faces being messy in Chapter 2, NEVER-NEVER TIME?
(a) The way they looked when they were born.
(b) The family's sullied house.
(c) The birth of baby robins.
(d) Snow falling from the sky and hitting the ground.

3. What metaphor does the narrator use at the end of Page 27 about the pregnant woman's response to the brothers?
(a) She is "curious, rubbing her palms slowly."
(b) She is "concrete and howled."
(c) She is "half gruff, half troll."
(d) She is "drinking us [the brothers] in."

4. On the way home from the lake, the narrator reveals his brothers' ages. How old are they?
(a) Manny is 14 years old, and Joel is 12 years old.
(b) Manny is 9 years old, and Joel is 7 years old.
(c) Manny is 9 years old, and Joel is 8 years old.
(d) Manny is 10 years old, and Joel is 8 years old.

5. What does Lina call Ma after arriving at the narrator's house?
(a) Amiga.
(b) Little One.
(c) Shorty.
(d) Comrade.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Ma, in Chapter 4, SEVEN, who "studies God"(13)?

2. Who is Paps listening to the radio when the boys come home after school in Chapter 3, THE HERITAGE (8)?

3. What object does the narrator use to tell the reader the size of the fish in the lake as mentioned on Page 19?

4. How does Ma describe carrying Manny in her "stomach" (26)?

5. Where does Ma work?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Paps coerce Ma into not being so irate about about the new truck?

2. Why is the narrator confused when Ma asks him why he is unable to swim in Chapter 5, LAKE?

3. What kind of support does Lina provide to the narrator's family when she comes to visit?

4. How do you know that the novel is being written in first-person?

5. Why do the brothers dig up Old Man's garden?

6. As the brothers hid in the bathtub, Paps and Ma pretend to not know and do not immediately come to find them. What deep fears does the narrator share about this lack of attention?

7. What personality traits and behaviors are both implicitly and explicitly conveyed through the description of the brothers' behaviors in the opening Chapters? How do you come to these conclusions?

8. How do you know that the narrator and his brothers are ravenous for more life according to the first page of the novel?

9. Having the knowledge of Ma's grueling work schedule and unstable behavior, why might the narrator say after Ma awakes confused, "It was a Sunday, but no one told Ma that" (5)?

10. Why do the narrator and Joel hide in a crawlspace when Paps returns home after being gone for many days?

(see the answer keys)

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