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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 Allison show Will on his second visit?

2. What happens to Will's father on the hunting trip?

3. What did young Will think just before the gunshot hit him?

4. How old is the stove that Allison finds?

5. How do Will and Ewell McBee first meet?

Short Essay Questions

1. What makes Allison feel like she needs to move quickly to get the stove into the greenhouse?

2. What does the story about the man who survives the plane crash mean to Allison?

3. What does Allison talk to the man in the garage of Washau Motors about?

4. When does Will realize who Allison is?

5. How does Allison find out where her aunt's estate is?

6. What restores the "missing ninety-eight percent" of Will's personality?

7. What is it that Will Barrett realizes when he falls down during the golf game at the opening of the novel?

8. What does Allison realize that she forgot to ask when she arrives at Washau Motors?

9. What is the self-discovery that Allison makes before she goes to Linwood?

10. What is the trouble that the chaplain Jack Curl is having with Will's daughter, Leslie?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

One of Walker Percy's main themes in the novel The Second Coming is identity. Discuss how the characters in the novel deal with their identities, using at least two characters to compare and contrast. Provide specific examples from the text to support your discussion.

Essay Topic 2

Allison has been trained her whole life to be a singer and a musician, but she finds herself unable to perform in public. She realizes that she is really good at manual labor. Write an essay discussing how Allison's character develops throughout the book, using her abilities and disabilities as a way to talk about her development. Use examples from the text to support your argument.

Essay Topic 3

Will and Allison are both attuned to nature, noticing clouds, grass, trees, birds, ants, and so on, throughout the course of the novel. Discuss Walker Percy's use of nature in the novel and how the appreciation of nature contributes to Will and Allison's characters.

(see the answer keys)

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