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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. Of which of the following does the narrator name herself a queen?

2. In which of the following months is “Toward the Amaranth Gates of War or Love” set?

3. Which of the following does the narrator’s brother order in “How to Go to Dinner with a Brother on Drugs”?

4. From which of the following does a horse leap in “Self-Portrait as a Chimera”?

5. Before the gates of which of the following does the narrator offer to prostrate herself?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the narrator explain at the end of “Soirée Fantastique”?

2. What reasons does the narrator give for taking her brother to dinner?

3. What does the narrator posit might be the worst part of the funeral for her brother?

4. In “Self-Portrait as a Chimera,” the narrator presents herself as facing execution. How does she relate herself to her lover as she does?

5. What reason does the narrator give for considering a skull in “Dome Riddle”?

6. How does the narrator report having interacted with Cortés in “Self-Portrait as a Chimera”?

7. For what reason does the narrator note having hosted her brother?

8. What does the narrator note possibly wanting to see fall near the end of “Black Magic Brother”?

9. How does the narrator of “I Lean Out the Window and She Nods Off in Bed, the Needle Gently Rocking on the Bedside Table” note having been created?

10. In what ways does the narrator note that she and her siblings are bestial in “Zoology”?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Many of the poems in the collection work well both with and without the inclusion of their title lines in the text. For any one of the poems in the collection, how does the reading change if the title is included as part of the main text of the poem?

Essay Topic 2

Notably, the narrator’s mother is accorded more dialogue than the narrator’s father. What meaning can be taken from the relative presentation, and how does that meaning emerge?

Essay Topic 3

What overall attitude towards family does the collection present? What in the text shows that presentation? How does it do so?

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