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

2. After the incident with a neighbor's housemaid, what did the man and woman's housemaid beg them to do?

3. Why was the swimming pool in the tale fenced in?

4. Who is said to have offered a warning to the man and woman when they started their life together?

5. Who had recommended the gardener to the man and his wife?

Short Essay Questions

1. What were the man and woman unable to insure their house against, and why did the man tell his wife they need not worry about that?

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

3. What fears did the man and woman's trusted housemaid begin to have, and what did they do in response to her fears?

4. 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?

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

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

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

8. What precautions do the man and woman take against theft or natural disasters when they first move in to their home together?

9. What recent crimes does the narrator describe at the start of the story?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss elements of the narrative structure; Exposition, conflict, complication, climax, resolution and conclusion. Do all the elements make for a logical and linear story? How does the story's structure express the themes?

Essay Topic 2

Look at the structure of the story. How does the author use character and dialogue to drive the narrative?

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay examining security devices as a symbol in “Once Upon a Time.” In what scenes do these devices appear? What is the context? How do these devices develop the narrative?

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