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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. When Doran left the band, where did he go?

2. Where does Siobhán's husband work?

3. What is the most accurate characterization of Rebecca's comments about Brandon's band and Glanbeigh?

4. When Arm and Dympna meet Hector at Lally's, what conspiracy theory is the odd older man with Hector trying to advance?

5. What does Arm take from Fannigan's house?

Short Essay Questions

1. What do the narrator and Siobhán see as they are driving down the quay road, and what is Siobhán's reaction?

2. How did Arm and Dympna meet?

3. What is Rebecca's opinion of Arm after their conversation at Quillinan's?

4. How do Eli, Doran, and Maryanne know one another?

5. What motives for helping him does the narrator of "Diamonds" ascribe to his former principal?

6. Who is Mellick, and what story does he tell at AA meetings?

7. What is Dympna's intention in bringing Arm inside the house at the farm, and how does Paudi react?

8. When Arm finally gets what he wants from Maire Mirkin, what is ironic about the situation?

9. Who is Siobhán Maher, and how does she recognize the narrator of "Diamonds"?

10. In the years since their band broke up, how have Eli and Doran's lives differed?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

Why are there so few functional romantic relationships in Young Skins? Is this a comment on the environment of Glanbeigh, a comment on Irish culture, or a comment on life in general? Write an essay that makes and defends a claim about the significance of the anthology's dearth of rewarding romantic relationships. Use textual evidence from throughout the anthology in defense of 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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