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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. Who runs out of the house second and finds the boy at the end of the story?

2. What were the man and woman and little boy no longer able to admire when they took their dog for walks around the neighborhood?

3. What words are used to describe the sounds the alarms in the suburban neighborhood made?

4. Who does the boy pretend he is saving at the end of the story?

5. What did the housemaid say to the woman who hung about the suburbs looking for work?

Short Essay Questions

1. What did the unemployed begin doing in the suburbs?

2. After building a higher wall, what did the man and woman notice the cat doing one night while discussing the latest robberies?

3. Despite thinking it the ugliest, what option did the man and woman choose to enhance security after building a higher wall?

4. What were intruders able to do even while the alarms wailed in the suburbs, and what did they take?

5. What did the son pretend to be the day after his mother read him a fairy tale from the book the Wise Old Witch gave him?

6. Describe the various security options the man and woman noticed during their neighborhood walk.

7. Who helps remove the little boy at the end of the story? How do they do it?

8. What does the wife tell her husband she is worried after installing the serrated metal coils around their wall?

9. Rather than noting lovely roses and gardens, what did the man and woman begin to admire during their neighborhood walks with their son and dog?

10. After the man and woman decided they should build a higher wall, what did the man's mother get them for Christmas? What did she get for their son?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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

Essay Topic 2

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?

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay about the significance of the riots in "Once Upon a Time." Where do they occur? Why? In what ways are the main characters impacted by these riots?

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