View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What expensive item did Frank buy for the household in order to foster his childrens' interest in knowledge and learning?
(a) A microscope kit.
(b) A marble globe.
(c) A set of encyclopedias.
(d) A gold-encased compass.

2. Because Janisse was one of her grandfather Charlie's favorite grandchildren, what two skills did he teach her?
(a) How to find huckleberry patches and how to make a raft.
(b) How to play horseshoes and how to wrestle.
(c) How to fight and how to fish.
(d) How to play the piano and how to tie a good knot.

3. How did Janisse and her siblings get access to books which they knew would garner their father's disapproval?
(a) They borrowed them from friends and read them only in the junkyard when their father was not around.
(b) They sneaked them home from the library within their clothes and sandwiched them between acceptable volumes.
(c) They waited for the Bookmobile to make a stop in town and spent hours inside the van reading forbidden titles.
(d) They bought them from garage sales and sneaked them home in their backpacks.

4. What object did Frank create out of driveshafts, hollow metal rods, and fence wire?
(a) A cart to pull behind the family car.
(b) A bathtub frame.
(c) A jungle gym.
(d) An arbor for a grapevine.

5. Though everyone was aware of Frank's predilection toward mental illness, what did everyone, including the police, agree was another possible cause of his first major nervous breakdown?
(a) He suddenly remembered a particularly violent episode involving his father.
(b) He found out Lee Ada had been unfaithful.
(c) His new friend spiked his lunch with LSD.
(d) He had not eaten for several days and it had affected his mental state.

Short Answer Questions

1. What prompted Frank to buy out his father Charlie's share of the salvage business?

2. Why did Janisse not worry when she did not have time to clean the makeshift chalkboard she and her brothers used to play school?

3. How old was Frank when Charlie first talked him into partnering with him in the wrecking yard business?

4. In Chapter 3, Janisse describes her family's junkyard as ten acres of failed what?

5. Pun's oft-given piece of advice to his son was, "Don't take more on your heart than you can shake off your heels." How does Janisse feel about this lesson?

Short Essay Questions

1. The second sentence of the chapter entitled Timber says, "About the same time, the production of naval stores in North Carolina began to wane and big turpentine producers in North Carolina sashayed into Georgia" 99). What is the effect of the author's choice of the verb "sashayed" and what is her purpose in making that choice?

2. What is the author's purpose in relating the fact that her parents told their children false stories about their births?

3. How does Janisse describe her feelings toward her father when he was mentally unwell?

4. What example of making something out of nothing does Janisse write about when showing her father Frank's ingenuity in the chapter entitled, "Native Genius"?

5. After explaining that "Ninety-eight percent of the presettlement longleaf pine barrents in the southeastern coastal plains were lost by 1986" (16), Janisse writes that she did not know about this loss as a child. However, she states, "But it is a loss that as an adult shadows every step I take" (16). What does she mean?

6. Why did Janisse look forward so much to the days when Frank shopped at Winn-Dixie?

7. What descriptions of her homeland does Janisse give in order to support her claim that her "homeland is about as ugly as a place gets" (13)?

8. What reasons does Janisse give for God disliking pine plantations?

9. When Janisse wrote that her father Frank was a "mechanic in the word's truest sense," what did she mean?

10. Besides the fact that he thought it had better prices than other stores, why did Frank shop at Winn-Dixie?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,679 words (approx. 6 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample