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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 Dru say to her mother about her dad?

2. What does Mike say to her about how he feels?

3. What does Dru whisper to her dog?

4. What does Scooter call himself and Elisa?

5. What does Mike ask Dru to do?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Mike and Dru talk about concerning Tom's stitches and jumping?

2. What does Dru say to Elisa about Scooter and what does she realize about Diane when she says it?

3. Where do Dru and Mike go for a walk and why does this upset Elisa?

4. What does Tom announce when the music stops and what does Diane do after the announcement?

5. What happens when Dru's family first arrives at Mike's house, how is the dinner and why does Janie irritate Dru?

6. What will Mrs. Moriarty be doing in the fall, and how do the two families feel about the California University system? How does Dru's dad feel about his children and college?

7. What is Diane wearing to the celebration, what does she proclaim Scooter and Elisa and with what does she present them?

8. What does Elisa notice when Scooter leaves to get a drink, what does she tell Dru and what is Dru's response?

9. Where does Dru go running with her dog, who does she see and what does she hope about Elisa?

10. What does Elisa want Dru to warn Tom about and what does Dru say to Tom?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Dru discusses the idea of feeling invisible. She feels this way until Mike and she start dating. This represents the universal teenage feeling of being invisible. It is a theme often seen in books about adolescence. For Dru, it is a real feeling and her encounter with Diane only exacerbates the feeling to a deeper level.

1. Discuss a time you or someone you know felt invisible. How did it compare to Dru's feelings? Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

2. Discuss, in depth, why Dru's meeting with Diane might have made her feel more invisible or insecure. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

3. Dating MIke is an external event which has made Dru feel, and possibly be, more acceptable to others in her school. Discuss some of the internal values Dru could strengthen within herself which could produce the same effect. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

Essay Topic 2

There is now a second car and a second drowned girl under the water. They sink to the deepest part of the sea, where no one can find them except those who jump the Nail. Therefore, the jumpers will delve into the deepest part of their insecurities, causing them to be swallowed whole by their insecure motivations. "Jumping the Nail" will return someday because there will always be teenagers with insecurities who are easily influenced by their peers.

1. Discuss what you think is meant by the statement above. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

2. Do you think it is only insecure teens who succumb to peer pressure? Why or why not? Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

3. Discuss, in depth, other reasons besides insecurity that a teen might decide to jump off the Nail. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

Essay Topic 3

Dru represents a mother figure. The other teenagers are eager to see Elisa and Scooter jump, but it tears Dru apart. She seems to take a motherly role with Elisa because she feels her influence would have stopped her best friend from jumping. Being a mother figure causes Dru not to fit in with the group. She is not rich or beautiful, but more importantly, she looks at the teenagers as people to whom she cannot relate. Thus, she separates herself from her own age group.

1. Dru is very intelligent having received a full scholarship to a prestigious university. Discuss how her intelligence may have contributed to her being a mother figure to some of the teenagers in "Jumping the Nail". Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

2. Why do you think Dru being a mother figure, with the maturity that implies, may interfere with Dru fitting in well with Dru and her peers? Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

3. Dru is apparently not only smart, but mature, and these two qualities make her feel like she does not fit in and she has a tendency to separate herself from her own age group. What are ways in which you believe Dru could feel more relaxed and compatible with her peers? Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

(see the answer keys)

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