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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 does Rose say when Posey asks about her children?

2. Who is the Italian woman that Posey and Chick go to visit last?

3. What does Chick notice as he, his mother, and Miss Thelma drive through town?

4. How does Posey react when Chick asks if he can be with her if he dies?

5. What did this caller in Section 4: Part 1 want from Chick?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Chick hear when he answers the phone at Rose's house?

2. Who encourages Chick to leave town the day of his mother's birthday? Why?

3. Who encouraged Chick to drop out of college?

4. What metaphor did Posey often use for the death of her patients when she was a nurse?

5. What do they call a short stay in professional baseball?

6. Why was Posey fired from her job as a nurse?

7. Whose voice does Chick hear as he goes to open the door at his mother's house in Section 3, Part 1?

8. Why was Posey not impressed with Chick's baseball scholarship?

9. What job does Chick learn his mother did in order to help pay his college tuition?

10. What does Chick claim he does not want to be?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss Chick Benetto. Who is Chick Benetto? How does Chick deal with the death of his mother? How did his father's actions keep Chick from being with his mother at the end of her life? How did Chick feel about this situation? Why? Why did Chick's marriage fall apart? Why did Chick's daughter cut him out of her life? What are the consequences of these actions?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss one of the following themes in detail, citing examples from the novel:

1) Death

2) Suicide

3) Father-Son Relationships

4) Mother-Son Relationships

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the narrator. Why does the narrator not tell the reader who she is at the beginning of the novel? Why does the narrator suggest she has only just met Chick Benetto when in fact she has known him her whole life? Who is the narrator? What role does the narrator play in Chick Benetto's attempted suicide? What caused the narrator to play this role in Chick Benetto's suicide? What changes in the narrator's relationship with Chick Benetto between the death of Posey, the near death of Chick Benetto, and Chick's telling of this story? Why?

(see the answer keys)

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