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. Who offers to guard the Lady when she comes out after the attack?

2. When Dick can hear his cat again, what does the cat tell him?

3. How does Ben react when Marion tells him about her meeting with his teacher?

4. Who primarily trades with the East for rhubarb?

5. What does Ben compare his reading lessons to?

Short Essay Questions

1. What women does the book Sir Louis gives Dick say are the most beautiful in the world?

2. What does Ben think, when he observes the special reading lesson?

3. What proposition does Sir Louis have for Dick?

4. What advice does Bernie tell Ben that the principal gave?

5. What effect do the bells have on Dick as he heads down the river to try to see Mary?

6. What does Mary Green look like?

7. After Ben talks to the animals in the barn about what his reading lessons were like, what do they all do?

8. What does Dick notice about the cat while the operation is going on?

9. In what way does Ben pet Whittington, and how does Whittington respond?

10. What did Dick Whittington spend his fortune on in his last years?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Grief and loss are important issues that the characters in the novel face. Discuss grief and loss.

1) How do Ben and Abby deal with their grief over the loss of their mother and father? How do they react to loss and how does loss affect them?

2) How does Dick Whittington react to loss, including the losses from the plague, his sense of loss of his home, the loss of Mary, and the loss of his cat? How does loss affect him?

3) How do other characters, including the Lady and Whittington, deal with loss?

Essay Topic 2

In the novel, Ben and Abby are growing up, and the reader also sees Dick Whittington grow up from a small boy to a man. Discuss growing up in the novel.

1) How does Dick grow up in the novel? How does he change as he grows up?

2) How does Ben grow up and get more mature? How does he change, and what does he learn?

3) How do the other characters grow and change in the novel? Do the animals grow up in some ways, similarly to the children?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the settings in the novel.

1) What role does the barn play as a setting in the novel? How does the setting of the barn affect the story and the reader's experience?

2) What role does London play as a setting in the novel? How is the time and place of Dick Whittington's life contrasted with the barn?

3) What other settings affect the novel, such as exotic Tripoli, and the reading program classroom?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 868 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample