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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. Where did the sisters' father grow up?

2. What is Sylvie wearing when the aunts see her?

3. How does Sylvie talk to Ruth and Lucille?

4. What does a teacher say about Lucille when they return to school following the flood?

5. What do Lily and Nona do about Sylvie and the girls?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Sylvie look like when she arrives in Fingerbone?

2. How does the grandfather's house fare in the flood?

3. What does Ruth and Lucille's mother do after she leaves them on the front porch?

4. What story does Sylvie tell during their stay upstairs to escape the flood waters? How do Ruth and Lucille react?

5. How do Lily and Nona feel about children?

6. What happens to the town the second week that Sylvie is in Fingerbone?

7. How does Sylvie feel about Ruth and Lucille going to school?

8. What does Ruth do when Sylvie will not come upstairs when the house is flooded?

9. What do Ruth's mother and two aunts do following their father's death?

10. What does the grandmother plan to do with the girls when she dies?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Lucille seems to want a "normal" household. Do you think this is true of most children? Explain your answer with illustrations from your life.

Essay Topic 2

Compare the physical setting of the novel, Fingerbone, with the events that have been shown in the sister's lives in chapter one. How does one reflect the other? What foreshadowing to the rest of the narrator's life, might be gleaned from the descriptions of Fingerbone and the types of events common in that town?

Essay Topic 3

By chapter five, we are beginning to see a picture of Sylvie as a person who does not seem to pay much attention to everyday life. What about Sylvie seems strange to you and does her strangeness make her more or less attractive to you? Why?

(see the answer keys)

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