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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 Plough want Vanessa to do after graduation?

2. How does Taylor react when Vanessa describes her relationship with Strane as the stuff of love stories?

3. What does Vanessa confess to Professor Plough during one meeting in his office?

4. What does Vanessa name the dog she adopts at the end of the novel?

5. Where do Vanessa and Taylor go to speak after Vanessa visits Taylor at her office?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Janine tell Vanessa on page 232, and how does Vanessa feel about Janine’s choice of words?

2. How does Strane react to his encounter with Plough? How does Vanessa react to it?

3. How is Vanessa’s mother haunted by the past, as revealed by Jan Wye on page 363?

4. What does Vanessa learn from Jenny in the spring of 2002?

5. What does Vanessa reveal to Henry Plough regarding her time at Browick? What connection to Browick does Plough reveal?

6. How does Vanessa’s relationship with Strane change after her graduation from college? To what can the reader attribute such change?

7. What does Vanessa tell Ruby about the extent of her control over Strane on page 319? What does Ruby say in response?

8. How does Strane describe the student accusing him of assault on page 306?

9. How does Strane die? How does he appear to Vanessa?

10. How does Vanessa fit in on campus, as explained on page 269?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss Vanessa’s journey toward healing and recovery. How does it ebb and flow? How does she make progress and fall behind? What does this say about an individual’s path to recovery?

Essay Topic 2

Appearances in My Dark Vanessa can be deceiving. How do appearances differ from reality in this novel? Discuss three characters, objects, or situations and how this idea applies to each.

Essay Topic 3

While teaching a lesson on Longfellow, Strane remarks that “the world is made of endlessly intersecting stories, each one valid and true” (21). How does the novel support or refute this claim?

(see the answer keys)

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