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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. In "Food for the Common Cold," who is the first person to notice the strange smell in David's mother's house?

2. In "Food for the Common Cold," what does Frick dislike about the birthday present David's father has given him?

3. In "The Blessing Tobacco," how old does David say his great-uncle was when he died?

4. In "In a Jar," what happens to David's medicine pouch?

5. In "Food for the Common Cold," what are Frick and David's mother arguing about besides the old graveyard?

Short Essay Questions

1. In "Food for the Common Cold," what is the difference between the way the adult narrator David and the child David in the story see the mood in the household during the week that Frick is gone?

2. In "Burn," what does Fellis asks David to do when he goes back to town to get marijuana, beer, and chips, and why does Fellis ask David to do this?

3. In "Food for the Common Cold," what does David do after the argument between Frick and his mother about the headstone?

4. In "In a Field of Stray Caterpillars," what is the rhetorical purpose of the story's ambiguous ending?

5. In "In a Jar," what is in the jar David finds, and why does it upset his mother?

6. In "Burn," what point about economic realities on the reservation does David make as he steps in the boot prints along the sidewalk on his way home?

7. In "Get Me Some Medicine," what is Fellis's ostensible issue with Meekew, and what does the story imply is his real issue?

8. In "The Blessing Tobacco," what is the rhetorical function of the passage where David considers whom he should "smoke like" (108)?

9. In "Food for the Common Cold," what are David's mother's and David's grandmother's opposing opinions about telling Frick about the hysterectomy?

10. In "In a Jar," what is implied to have happened to Paige at the end of the story?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the significance of the questions David keeps asking himself throughout "Night of the Living Rez"? How is the precise wording of his questions important, including the way this wording shifts during the story? How do these questions indicate the pivotal role this story plays in the collection's overall structure? Write an essay that analyzes the significance of David's repeated questions in "Night of the Living Rez" and that links these questions to the function of this story in the overall collection. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the collection, including quoted evidence focused on the diction David employs in "Night of the Living Rez." Cite all quoted evidence in MLA format.

Essay Topic 2

"Half-Life" is not the only story in this collection where water plays a symbolic role. Choose another story where water seems to play such a role. Is water being used to convey the same kinds of ideas, or does the water seem to play a different role in this second story? Write an essay that compares and contrasts the symbolic use of water in these two stories. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from both stories, citing any quoted evidence in MLA format.

Essay Topic 3

You have already spent some time considering how the title "Half-Life" relates to the motif of sleep and unconsciousness. David is in many ways "half-alive" in this story. But the term "half-life" generally is used to refer to the decay rate of substances--radioactive elements, medications, and so on. How is this additional meaning related to David's drug-induced somnambulism? Write an essay in which you make and defend a claim about what might be "decaying" in David or in his life and show how this is related to the larger motif of "sleepwalking" through life. Support your assertions with evidence from throughout the story, citing any quoted evidence in MLA format.

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