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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. 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 mother.
(c) His father
(d) His grandmother.

3. What does the speaker call the severed web symbol?
(a) An Inadequately Worded Idiom.
(b) A Barely Tolerable Subsitute.
(c) A Hardly Acceptable Replacement.
(d) A Scarcely Salvageable Sentence.

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

5. Why did the speaker's brother go to the university health center a few weeks ago?
(a) He was depressed.
(b) He had a high fever for several days.
(c) He was having chest pains.
(d) He suffered panic attacks.

6. What example does the speaker use of the should have brackets when his father asks him if he hears static in the phone?
(a) {I'm crying into the phone}.
(b) {I cannot hear anything}.
(c) {I'm no longer listening}.
(d) {I'm hanging up the phone}.

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

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

9. How many heart attacks has the speaker's father suffered?
(a) 41.
(b) 8.
(c) 14.
(d) 22.

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

11. How many heart attacks had the speaker's father suffered when he told his son the secret to his successful marriage?
(a) 1.
(b) 19.
(c) 22.
(d) 4.

12. 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 father.
(d) His grandmother.

13. In the final conversation in the story, what is Jonathan's response to his father's {I love you}?
(a) {Let me be}.
(b) {I love you too, so much}.
(c) {I'm crying into the phone}.
(d) {Help}.

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

15. What recurring dreams did the speaker's father have?
(a) Pulling weeds from his chest.
(b) Running for president.
(c) Hiding from Nazis.
(d) Playing on the Orioles.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. What is the speaker's response to "Jonathan" when followed by a pedal point in the example he uses?

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

4. What phrase can the low point replace?

5. What does the father say in should have brackets to Jonathan about his dreams during the final conversation in the story?

(see the answer keys)

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