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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. According to David, approximately what percentage of all second marriages end in divorce?

2. What final advice does David give to the addicted young woman for whom he buys lunch?

3. Randy, Nic's sponsor, buys Nic what item so that the two men can spend time together being active?

4. At what location do David and Nic agree to meet the day that Nic is very late?

5. Nic finds a job at a rehab facility called what?

Short Essay Questions

1. How much more likely are addicts to have underlying mental health issues, in relation to the general population?

2. What new hobby does Nic take up around the time when David regains his memory after surviving a cerebral hemorrhage?

3. In what way is the theme of hope demonstrated in David's mention of St. Helena Hospital?

4. How late is Nic when he sets a lunch date with his father at the restaurant Steps of Rome?

5. What is the main element of twelve-step recovery programs that Nic rejects?

6. What observation does Nic make about the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco?

7. For what purpose does Sheff use the shark and the cormorant simile?

8. Discuss Sheff's use of the broken suitcase image to indicate the injured nature of his post-hemorrhage brain.

9. For what purpose does Sheff use the allusion to the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?

10. What major medical emergency befalls David Sheff just before Nic's eighteenth birthday?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the motif of sound within David Sheff's memoir Beautiful Boy.

Essay Topic 2

What ultimate message is David Sheff's memoir Beautiful Boy sending about the state of the drug rehabilitation industry in America?

Essay Topic 3

Examine David Sheff’s use of characterization methods to portray his own family members. What effect do these characterization methods have on the memoir's inherent themes and messages?

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