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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What did "a certain novelist" say every writer "ought to write at least once" (23)?
(a) A children's story.
(b) A screenplay.
(c) A thriller.
(d) A haiku.

2. Why did the neighborhood alarms often go unanswered after many had them installed?
(a) Pets were setting them off.
(b) They could not tell whose house it was coming from.
(c) They were often on vacation.
(d) Kids would set them off for fun.

3. Where does the story the narrator tells herself take place?
(a) An apartment in the city.
(b) A house in the suburbs.
(c) A condo by the ocean.
(d) A house in the country.

4. What instrument does the narrator cite when describing how "the misbeats of [her] heart tailed off" (24)?
(a) Flute.
(b) Saxophone.
(c) Trumpet.
(d) Xylophone.

5. After the incident with a neighbor's housemaid, what did the man and woman's housemaid beg them to do?
(a) Move to the country.
(b) Install burglar bars and an alarm system.
(c) Get a gun.
(d) Give her a raise.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the narrator describe as "finely tuned" in the night?

2. What is the man's mother called in the narrator's tale?

3. How was the plaque meant to indicate that the property owner was not racist?

4. Where were the riots said to be in the tale the narrator tells herself?

5. According to the narrator's tale, under what conditions were people who lived in the city allowed in the suburbs?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the husband try to assuage his wife's fears when she worries people from the cities will tear off their warning sign and "open the gates and stream in" (26).

2. Despite having the same fears of intruders as other people, what precautions does the narrator say she does not take in her home?

3. What does the narrator realize is the cause of the creaking she hears in her home at the start of the story?

4. Describe the sign the man and woman received from the Neighborhood watch. How was it supposed to "prove the property owner was no racist" (25)?

5. What does the narrator do when she is an able to fall back to sleep at the start of the story?

6. How is the man's mother described and what warning did she give her son and his wife as they start their life together?

7. At the start of "Once Upon a Time," what does the narrator say someone wrote and asked her to do, and how does she feel about this request?

8. After the riots outside the city subsided, what crimes took place in the suburbs?

9. What does the man have installed in their house to ease his wife's fears and what does the boy do with them?

10. Why is the narrator unable to sleep at the start of the story?

(see the answer keys)

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