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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 is the name of the street Hughes lives on?

2. Who does Didion watch Michael debrief?

3. What is the title of the second part of the book?

4. Who does Wayne have dinner with at the end of the chapter?

5. What did Lucille and Cork go to the shop to buy?

Short Essay Questions

1. What conclusion does Didion come to about her habit of writing notes?

2. What conclusion does Didion come to in the Howard Hughes essay?

3. How does Max live his life as a hippie?

4. What inconsistencies did the police find with Lucille's story?

5. How do people treat their marriages in Las Vegas?

6. What were Didion's feelings when she met John Wayne for the first time?

7. How does Baez act in court?

8. Why is Joan Baez standing before the Monterey County Board of Supervisors?

9. Why did Joan Baez become a performer?

10. What is Didion's view on the center?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Identify the main themes of the book. Why do you think these themes are so important to Didion? How does Didion express the main themes of the book through each essay?

Essay Topic 2

How much do the students think what Didion remembers about the Sacramento Valley is merely nostalgia? How do you think the children living there now will remember the Sacramento Valley? How does Didion's nostalgia either take away or add to the validity to the points Didion tries to make?

Essay Topic 3

Examine the book as a whole.

1) What is the central argument of the book?

2) How are the essays arranged to construct this argument?

(see the answer keys)

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