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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 is the name of the private detective Cam hires?

2. Where is James McDonald's dead wife when he come to the station to confess to her murder?

3. What is Allie making for Cam and Mia?

4. How old was Cam's mother when she got married?

5. What potion does Allie help Ellen prepare?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Ellen burn herself when she and Allie are trying out their healing potion?

2. After she has sold everything and is waiting for her husband to come home, what does the woman remember reading about?

3. What is the epiphany Jamie has while attending the library lecture?

4. What important information does Maggie's best friend tell Allie?

5. What in particular concerns Allie about her relationship with Cam?

6. What does Allie learn about Maggie's condition from her doctor?

7. Why did Ellen McDonald embrace New Age ideas after her husband's death eight years ago?

8. In the opening of the novel, what does the woman do after her husband comes home to a house that has been emptied of his possessions?

9. Why did Jamie come to Wheelock to kill Maggie?

10. Why does Cam secretly hire a lawyer for Jamie?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What was Jamie's theory about marriage? How did it apply to what he did to Maggie as well as her asking him to do it? How did it apply to Allie and Cam's marriage?

Essay Topic 2

Choose one of the following quotes used at the beginning of the novel to discuss the plot and themes of Mercy as they are illuminated through the quote:

1. "Who will not mercy unto others show,/How can he mercy ever hope to have?" -Edmund Spenser, The Fairie Queene

2. "A man gazing on the stars is proverbially/at the mercy of the puddles on the road." -Alexander Smith, Men of Letters

Essay Topic 3

Discuss how the theme of love was used in Mercy not just as romantic love, but love of country and duty to family.

(see the answer keys)

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