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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. How is Aunt Polly related to Tom?

2. What is the potential consequence Tom heard that the illness could have?

3. What happens to the doctor?

4. Who wins the battle?

5. What tonic does Aunt Polly give Tom to bring him out of his depressed mood?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Tom realize that Muff Potter cannot tell the true story?

2. What is Aunt Polly's reaction to Tom's disappearance?

3. How are Sid and Tom different?

4. How does Tom trick other boys into doing his work for him?

5. Describe Amy Lawrence's reactions during Sunday School.

6. What grievance does Injun Joe have against the doctor?

7. Why does Tom confess that he stopped to talk with Huckleberry Finn on the way to school?

8. Where do Tom and Huck agree to meet next?

9. What does Sid do to try to hear what Tom is saying in his sleep?

10. What about Tom's behavior at school strikes Sid as strange?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Tom Sawyer is a dramatic person. He creates melodrama out of the events of his life.

1) Why does Tom Sawyer take on a melodramatic attitude of pining for Becky and then depression when Becky rejects him? Who is this attitude aimed at?

2) How and why does Tom dramatize the things that he does, such as running away to become a pirate? Why does Tom choose to let his family suffer, thinking he's dead, so that he can make his reemergence more dramatic?

3) What is the origin of Tom's desire for drama?

Essay Topic 2

Huck Finn feels constrained by the Widow Douglas, just as Tom feels constrained by his Sunday shoes. Discuss freedom in the novel, and how freedom conflicts with civilization.

1) What does Huck Finn find constricting about civilization?

2) The boys admire and emulate outlaws. Why do they admire fictional outlaws? How do they feel about the real outlaws in the novel?

3) Tom Sawyer admires Huck for his free lifestyle, and yet at the end of the novel, he convinces Huck to stay with the Widow Douglas. Why does he do this?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss love and jealousy in the novel by examining the relationship between Becky and Tom.

1) Is Tom really in love with Becky? Is his love for Becky different from his "love" for Amy Lawrence, whom he so easily dismisses? How is his love of Becky different from his love for Aunt Polly?

2) Describe Becky's feelings for Tom. What attracts Becky to Tom? How deep are her emotions for him? How does the experience in the caves change their relationship?

3) How do the characters experience and use jealousy in their relationship?

(see the answer keys)

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