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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. What was the name of the closest mental hospital to the Rays' home, where many family members and neighbors of theirs spent time?

2. What forbidden activity do Janisse and her siblings get to do when they are at Beulah's house?

3. How many children did Clyo and Charlie have together?

4. What article of clothing did Lee Ada make for Janisse that caused people to call her Little Red Riding Hood?

5. What is the average amount of rainfall in Appling County, Georgia?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did Janisse feel about her mother when she was a child?

2. Beyond just the loss of their physical homes, what does Janisse mean when she writes that all of the animals who live among longleaf pines face "loss of place" (142) as a result of logging?

3. How does the concept of determinism emerge in the final paragraph of the chapter entitled Poverty?

4. If she had any spare time, what did Janisse always want to do and how did her mother feel about that pastime?

5. Rather than disciplining the children by spanking them or hurting them in any other way, what methods did Lee Ada use to get the children to behave?

6. What does Janisse mean when she writes that the last chapter of Proverbs describes her mother Lee Ada better than anything she herself could attempt?

7. Why did so many strangers from other places stop by the family's junkyard?

8. How did Lee Ada's father Arthur feel about Frank's and Lee Ada's decision to elope?

9. What was Janisse's reaction to seeing her first indigo snake live in the wild?

10. What is the main characteristic present in indigo snakes that led to much of their endangered status, in addition to the fact that they use endangered gopher tortoises' burrows as shelter?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the irony within the scene in which Janisse brings home a botanist from college and he is so shocked by the state of the family's home and property that he locks himself in the bedroom, only coming out for meals. How does his disgust regarding Janisse's family home reflect what Janisse perceives to be the pervading reaction of the outside world when looking at people from her part of the country? And how does Janisse's father Frank's job as a salvage yard owner contrast with the botanist's view of the disarray he views as defining the family's situation?

Essay Topic 2

What parallels does Janisse Ray draw between a junkyard and the wilderness throughout the memoir? How does this unique viewpoint help to get across her message to the reader concerning environmentalism and the role humans ought to inhabit in relation to nature?

Essay Topic 3

Examine the appendices included at the end of the memoir. Why does the author include them and what message is the author sending to the reader by encouraging their use?

(see the answer keys)

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