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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What physically connects Francis to the memory of his son’s death?
(a) The winds in the grass.
(b) Birds chirping in the trees.
(c) The sensation of his own awed astonishment at what happened.
(d) Tears dropping on his shoes.

2. How did Aldo Campione die?
(a) Shot in the back.
(b) His neck was broken in a fight.
(c) He died of exposure.
(d) Fell from a train.

3. What physical debility does Reverend Chester have?
(a) Blind eye.
(b) Clubfoot.
(c) Facial scars.
(d) Mangled hand.

4. How does Francis characterize Sandra’s life?
(a) It was redeemed as she died.
(b) It had become angelic.
(c) It wasn’t human any more.
(d) It was squandered.

5. What does the narrator say was Francis’ relationship with prayer?
(a) He prayed for forgiveness for his sins.
(b) He prayed religiously for his health and others’.
(c) He always resisted speaking to imaginary people.
(d) He never knew what to pray for.

6. What makes it possible for Francis and Rudy to eat at the Mission?
(a) They are sober.
(b) They have money.
(c) They made reservations.
(d) They are homeless.

7. Where does Francis say his mother probably is?
(a) Limbo.
(b) Heaven.
(c) Purgatory.
(d) Hell.

8. What was Francis Phelan’s batting average in 1916?
(a) .387.
(b) .405.
(c) .314.
(d) .256.

9. When did the confrontation with the scabs take place?
(a) 1897.
(b) 1916.
(c) 1901.
(d) 1907.

10. What image does the narrator say Helen presents to the audience at the Gilded Cage?
(a) Womanly disaster.
(b) A life hard-lived.
(c) A monument to human endurance.
(d) Age and wisdom.

11. What does Francis say he would like to do to his mother?
(a) Ask her forgiveness.
(b) Confess himself to her.
(c) Strangle her bones.
(d) Talk to her again.

12. How does the narrator characterize Francis’ mother’s reaction to his arrival in the cemetery?
(a) Nervous.
(b) Furious.
(c) Relieved.
(d) Delighted.

13. How familiar does Francis say trolleys are to him?
(a) He never rides them.
(b) They are as familiar as his father’s face.
(c) He himself built the trolley he and Rudy ride.
(d) He used to know them well, but has forgotten.

14. What does the narrator say is the real basis of the kinship the young Phelan brothers feel with Francis?
(a) Poverty.
(b) Alcoholism.
(c) Ireland.
(d) Family.

15. How does the narrator characterize Gerald’s eternal repose?
(a) Torment.
(b) Sublimity.
(c) Struggle.
(d) Abdication.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where does Francis Phelan find his family’s graves?

2. What is the essence of Francis’ response when Rudy asks where they are going?

3. Where did Francis go after the first time he killed a man?

4. Where does Helen sleep after she and Francis leave Jack and Clara’s?

5. How does the narrator say Daddy Big Dugan died?

(see the answer keys)

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