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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 rhetorical purpose is served by explaining how the town council has dealt with the bridge situation?

2. What does Bat find in the gas station's bathroom sink?

3. Jamie Duffy's nickname, "Scaldyballs," is an example of which literary device?

4. The description of Tain's knees as "blunt, knobby, and flushed scaldingly red" reinforces what about Tain (65)?

5. To what animal does Martina compare the drummer?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who is the "Clancy kid," and what happened to him?

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

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

4. What in Tug's interaction with the children at the bridge demonstrates the softer side of his nature?

5. Who is Martina's college boyfriend, and why is she thinking about ending the relationship?

6. What are the two other names that Tug is known by, and how did he get them?

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

8. Describe Bat's relationship with his mother in "Stand Your Skin."

9. When "Bait" opens, where are Matteen and Teddy, and why are they there?

10. What is the setting of "The Clancy Kid"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay that makes and defends a claim about the significance of nicknames in Young Skins. Use evidence from at least four stories in support of your ideas.

Essay Topic 2

Loyalty to and support of family is an important cultural value in rural Ireland. But in Young Skins, not all "family" is biological. Write an essay that compares and contrasts the "found families" and the "biological families" in the anthology and makes a claim about the thematic significance of the similarities and differences between them. Use evidence from throughout the anthology to defend your ideas.

Essay Topic 3

In "Stand Your Skin," Bat turns to alcohol as an escape from his circumstances. Throughout Young Skins, characters use alcohol in ways that create problems for them; is this what Bat is doing, or given his limited opportunities to create a better life for himself, is his drinking a logical response? Does Barrett mean to simply condemn the drinking culture of small-town Ireland, or do the stories reveal a more nuanced reaction to it? Write an essay that places Bat's drinking into the context of the anthology as a whole and uses Bat's situation to illuminate the anthology's perspective on the drinking culture of rural Ireland.

(see the answer keys)

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