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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 did this person come to compose his own music?

2. Who tells Ruby and Ada about the shooting of Stobrod and Pangle?

3. How many people were originally in the grief stricken mother's family that Inman meets in the chapter, A Vow to Bear?

4. What map does Inman follow on the next leg of his journey in the chapter, The Doing of It?

5. What does Ruby instruct Ada to do while she is in town trading for beef?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Inman do in exchange for a hot meal from a grief stricken mother?

2. What decision does Inman make the following morning about his future?

3. What does Stobrod finally confess he wants from Ruby?

4. What animal does Inman dream about and later feel responsible for killing?

5. What does Inman learn about his new companion that leads him to a conclusion about his own future?

6. Who once lived in the village that Ruby and Ada have brought Stobrod to?

7. Who or what does Ruby catch in her trap in the cornfield?

8. Who helps Inman with his injuries?

9. Why are things awkward between Inman and Ada at first? How does this begin to change?

10. What do Ada and Ruby find when they come to Stobrod's camp?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Why does Ruby dislike Stobrod? Does Ruby have good reason to dislike her father? What does Ruby blame her father for? Was Stobrod ever abusive toward Ruby? Did Stobrod neglect his daughter? If so, why? Why does Ruby refuse to allow Stobrod around? Is this a punishment of sort? How does Ruby feel when Stobrod is shot? Does this change Ruby's relationship with her father? Why or why not?

Essay Topic 2

What lesson is Inman repeatedly told to learn? Why? Why do people ask this of Inman? What do they hope he will learn from this lesson? Does Inman learn this lesson? What does this lesson teach Inman?

Essay Topic 3

Inman and Ada barely know one another before Inman goes to war, but Inman is deeply in love with Ada. Discuss how courtship was different in the time period in which this novel takes place. Would a modern woman have waited for a man like Inman return from war like Ada does? Would a modern woman fall in love with a man with such limited contact? Would a modern man imagine a lifetime with a woman he knew such a short time? Did the war affect the affection these two people felt for one another? In what way?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 865 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample