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

Short Answer Questions

1. According Chapter 5, THE LAKE, who is the only one in the family allowed to say he/she is scared?

2. What does Paps do when Ma yells at him, "This fucking big-dick truck" (64)?

3. What do the brothers give the pregnant woman outside the drugstore?

4. Why does Manny crawl into bed with his brother at the beginning of the story?

5. Why are grocery stores and banks closed when Ma takes her sons to run errands?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the narrator differentiate the brothers' behavior in relation to when Ma is awake or asleep?

2. 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)?

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

4. 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?

5. 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?

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

7. At the start of Chapter 10, YOU BETTER COME, how does Paps show an expression of regret when he returns to the family's home?

8. How does the narrator feel when Paps and Ma discover him after the narrator nearly drowns in the lake?

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In reference to the narrator asking Paps about the caged light in Chapter 6, NIGHT WATCH, on the ride home from Paps' work, the brothers incessantly ask Paps if he has the capability of unlocking and freeing the light. How does this interrogation from all three brothers show their concern about Paps' power? What is a possible relation to this conversation and the brothers' own futures and potential?

Essay Topic 2

At the start of the novel, Ma asks the brothers to squirt tomato juice on her. Before being splattered, she compares the brothers appearance, covered in red tomato sliminess, with what the brothers looked like when they were born. Ma requests that the brothers, "Do it to me [Ma]?...Make me born" (6). What does this quote symbolize about Ma and her possible wants, needs, fears, state of mind, or stability? Provide specific examples to support your answer, as well as appropriate quotes.

Essay Topic 3

While at the Lake, Ma asks the narrator how come he is unable to swim, which surprises him, because Ma should be well aware about an earlier incident when the narrator nearly drowned. The narrator considers, "She asked the question as if she was meeting me for the first time...as if it had only just now occurred to Ma how odd it was that I was here, clinging to her and Paps..." (20). What does the narrator's confusion reveal about his relationship with Ma?

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