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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 object does the narrator use to tell the reader the size of the fish in the lake as mentioned on Page 19?
(a) Cigarettes.
(b) Crescents.
(c) Clumps.
(d) Leaves.

2. How does Ma feel about the phone ringing in Chapter 9, TALK TO ME?
(a) She shows no emotion.
(b) Annoyed.
(c) Scared.
(d) Happy.

3. What promise does Paps eventually make to Ma about the truck?
(a) He will buy Ma her own car.
(b) He will sell the truck for more money.
(c) He will return the truck the next day.
(d) He will make seatbelts for the boys.

4. What color is the family's new truck?
(a) Blood orange.
(b) Cobalt blue.
(c) Fire engine red.
(d) Dark rusty brown.

5. Where has Ma seen the "most water she ever saw in one place" (19)?
(a) In upstate New York after the snow melted.
(b) In California in giant public swimming pools, where she swam in the summer.
(c) In Brooklyn after it rained and puddles gathered on the sides of the street.
(d) In Brooklyn when men opened a johnny pump and water rushed forth.

Short Answer Questions

1. When the family car breaks down in the rain, what does Paps use to protect the brothers?

2. In the crawlspace, the narrator asks Joel, "It's just going to be like this forever?" (43). What is the narrator referring to?

3. At the start of the novel, how many boys, also brothers, are introduced?

4. What do the brothers do with the baby robins that they find in the woods?

5. In the last paragraph of Chapter 10, YOU BETTER COME, what does the narrator imply the brothers "need" (51)?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What previous incident may have led Joel to ask a pregnant woman outside a drugstore if she was tricked into having a baby?

3. What metaphorical significance can be determined by the fact that Ma and the narrator cannot swim and hang on to Paps in order to stay afloat?

4. Why does Ma not want the narrator to get older like his other brothers?

5. How does the reader know that Ma was a naive teenager when it came to sex as explained in Chapter 6, US PROPER?

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 may the Quote provided before the Title Page relate to you about a theme or important motif of the novel?

8. What are some examples at the start of Chapter 12, BIG-DICK TRUCK that demonstrate the financial situation of the narrator's family?

9. 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?

10. At the end of Chapter 10, NIGHT WATCH, Paps says,"We're never going to escape this...Never" (60). What is he sure the narrator's family will not escape?

(see the answer keys)

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