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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. What is the juxtaposition of Jimmy's comments about Tug's inability to lie convincingly with Jimmy's question about Tug's medication intended to convey?

2. What is Tansey doing when Teddy says that he "gouged the baize" (31)?

3. When the two men get out of their car opposite to where Val, Joan, and Martina are sitting, what are they dressed to do?

4. What is an "alfresco" area of a restaurant?

5. What is Martina's attitude toward the young customers trading phone numbers and kissing one another goodbye in the parking lot?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the main character of "Stand Your Skin."

2. What happens on the club's balcony, and what does it suggest about Val?

3. What does Tain bring with her to the bar, and what ends up happening to it?

4. Who is Nubbin Tansey, and what trouble does he cause at Quillinan's Pub?

5. What happened to Bat at Monroe's takeaway?

6. What happens on the final Saturday of the story "The Moon"?

7. How does Val know Martina Boran, and how has their relationship changed since he met her?

8. In what sense does Bat try to protect Tain's childhood?

9. When Jimmy and Tug leave the pub and see Mark's car, what do they do?

10. What happens when the four underage girls arrive at the club on the night the story opens?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In "The Moon," Martina seems scornful toward the town where she was raised and the people who have chosen to remain there. This sentiment is expressed by "leavers" and outsiders in several stories in Young Skins. Do the stories offer any counterclaims from the perspectives of the small-town inhabitants, or do the stories leave this perspective unchallenged? Write an essay that makes and defends a claim about what the stories seem to be saying about the value of staying in an environment like Glanbeigh. Use evidence from "The Moon" and at least two other stories to support your ideas.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay that affirms, refutes, or qualifies the following statement: "Young Skins identifies college as a gatekeeping institution that undermines the Irish value of egalitarianism." Use textual evidence from at least two stories in the anthology to support your claims.

Essay Topic 3

What is the rhetorical function of the graphic depictions of violence in "Calm With Horses"? Write an essay that makes and defends a claim about the purpose of including such detailed descriptions of violence; use textual evidence to support your ideas.

(see the answer keys)

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