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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does the narrator's father attribute to his successful marriage?
(a) Open communication.
(b) Giving each other room to grow.
(c) Being a little deaf sometimes.
(d) Being a yes man.

2. What is the subject of the discussion the speaker uses to exemplify use of the low point?
(a) His depression.
(b) His lack of a good job.
(c) His inability to community with candor.
(d) His lack of a girlfriend.

3. What is the purpose of the backup?
(a) It is used to restart a conversation when you were too distracted to listen.
(b) It is used to replay a sentence and discover what might have been missed.
(c) It is used to repeat what you said so the person to whom you are speaking can understand.
(d) It is used to erase what you said and rephrase.

4. What does the speaker say familial communication always has to do with?
(a) A willingness to communicate.
(b) Failures to communicate.
(c) Forced communication.
(d) Honest communication.

5. What phrase can the low point replace?
(a) It couldn't possible be worse.
(b) This is as good as it gets.
(c) What goes up must come down.
(d) Nowhere to go but up.

6. What does the speaker say low points tend to do in his communication with family?
(a) Make things worse.
(b) Make things better.
(c) Confuse the situation.
(d) Not change anything.

7. How is this sentence spoken by the speaker's mother changed when the back up is used: "It pains me to think of you alone" (7).
(a) It pains me to think you will not have anyone to take care of you in old age.
(b) It pains me to think of me without any grandchildren to love.
(c) It pains me to think you may never understand how much I love you.
(d) It pains me to think you will never know a child's love.

8. What did the speaker call his brother and say after finding out he was in intensive care?
(a) He should watch his diet.
(b) He should not worry.
(c) He needs to take care of himself.
(d) He must exercise more.

9. What sentence is NOT used as an example of when the reversible colon is appropriate?
(a) I want a better life::my family.
(b) Sex::yes.
(c) My eyes water when I speak about my family::I don't like to speak about my family.
(d) I've never felt loved by anyone outside of my family::my persistent depression.

10. What were the speaker and his father recently doing, despite his father's doctor telling him not to?
(a) Running.
(b) Lifting weights.
(c) Stacking wood.
(d) Pulling weeds.

11. When is the reversible colon used?
(a) To show that both sides of the sentence cancel each other out.
(b) To show that two sides of a sentence explain each other.
(c) To show that one side of a sentence does not need the other.
(d) To show that one side of a sentence is better than the other.

12. While weeding, what did the speaker's father say had happened to his brother?
(a) He had become very affectionate.
(b) He had become disagreeable.
(c) He had become a yes man.
(d) He had become distant.

13. Which member of the speaker's family do you attribute this sentence to: "I didn't die in the Holocaust, but all of my siblings did, so where does that leave me" (5)?
(a) His great-aunt.
(b) His grandmother.
(c) His father
(d) His mother.

14. How early on in the marriage did the speaker's parents have their first fight?
(a) On their first anniversary.
(b) The first day.
(c) After their first year.
(d) During the first week.

15. The speaker uses a conversation between himself and which relative as an example of the low point?
(a) His mother.
(b) His brother.
(c) His grandmother.
(d) His father.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why did the speaker's brother go to the university health center a few weeks ago?

2. How may fights have the speaker's parent had in all of their marriage?

3. What does the speaker acknowledge about the should-have brackets in the final paragraph of the story?

4. What are some things the speaker might be doing when he imagines his family's versions of the should-haves?

5. What life changing event was going to happen to the speaker's brother a few weeks after the speaker and his father were weeding?

(see the answer keys)

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