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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 1.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Whom does Holston see picking up scattered chalk and crayons from the stained tiles at the top of the stairs in Chapter 1?
(a) Michelle.
(b) Donna.
(c) Sarah.
(d) Andrea.

2. The days of Holston’s childhood are described in Chapter 1 as being over how many years distant?
(a) 30.
(b) 40.
(c) 60.
(d) 50.

3. What rooms are described in Chapter 1 as being filled with “tangles of pipes, like a vast universe”?
(a) Airlock chambers.
(b) Purification rooms.
(c) Torture rooms.
(d) Reading rooms.

4. What did Holston and his wife hang over their bed to increase fertility?
(a) Garlic.
(b) Feathers.
(c) Pennies.
(d) Potatoes.

5. The narrator says of Holston in Chapter 1, “And he thought, not for the first time, that neither life nor staircase had been meant for” what?
(a) “The final days.”
(b) “The footprints of babes.”
(c) “Such an existence.”
(d) “Walking upon.”

Short Answer Questions

1. What word from Chapter 1 refers to a systematic or established manner?

2. What word from Chapter 1 refers to a monumental structure with a square or triangular base and sloping sides that meet in a point at the top?

3. What kinds of gardens are described as growing in the silo in Chapter 1?

4. How many years is Holston said to have “spent silently waiting for what would never come” in Chapter 1?

5. What word from Chapter 1 means not in harmony or keeping with the surroundings of other aspects of something?

(see the answer key)

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