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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. The end of the prologue states, "She later figured" that Tim had "probably died while she was waiting at the stoplight" (3) a block away from which landmark?

2. Evvie discovers in Fall: Chapter 8 that "what had happened to Dean" with his pitching "was called the" (55) what?

3. Tim's mother Lila always smells of what scent, according to Evvie?

4. Dean and Evvie agree that Maine is "the oldest and" most what "state in the country" (71)?

5. Dean says that which character(s) had "pushed [him] really hard" (75) to go to an All-Star Camp for baseball?

Short Essay Questions

1. Discuss an instance when Holmes uses a literary device to comment on the nature of youth.

2. What is the "one thing" (54) Dean claims to have done seriously ever since the age of ten?

3. For what major change is Evvie preparing when the reader first meets her in the prologue entitled First?

4. How did Dean end up attending Cornell, according to him?

5. What do Evvie's set of dishes with the yellow flowers on them symbolize?

6. What object does Evvie place on the mantel just before she opens the door to meet Dean and what is the object's significance?

7. What is the history of the friendship between Dean and Andy?

8. What event is revealed at the end of the prologue to have brought a halt to Evvie's plans?

9. How does Holmes weave together issues of class with issues of domestic abuse?

10. In what way does the theme of isolation appear within Fall: Chapter 1 of Evvie Drake Starts Over?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

William Faulkner once famously claimed that the most important literature deals with the subject of the human heart in conflict with itself. Explain how the theme of Human versus Self is demonstrated within Holmes’s novel Evvie Drake Starts Over. Create a decisive, arguable claim and prove it with quotes from the novel.

Essay Topic 2

Discuss Holmes's choice to tell the story of Evvie Drake Starts Over using a third person limited omniscient narrator. What elements of the novel's themes lend themselves to this choice and what are Holmes’s intended effects on the reader?

Essay Topic 3

Trace the characterization arc of Evvie’s character throughout the novel Evvie Drake Starts Over. Discuss whether Evvie is a round or flat character and whether she is a static or dynamic character.

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