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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 does the narrator say audience members ate while waiting for the act to begin?
(a) Ice cream and candy.
(b) Popcorn and peanuts.
(c) Hot dogs and chips.
(d) Hamburgers and French fries.

2. Where does the narrator say she used to live in paragraph 4?
(a) The South.
(b) The Far East.
(c) The West.
(d) The North.

3. What are some things the narrator says her mother has not kept from her youth?
(a) Journals or news clippings.
(b) Essays or awards.
(c) Old clothes and old friends.
(d) Sequined costumes or posters.

4. What stands "cast in concrete" (para. 3) to commemorate the accident?
(a) A feather boa.
(b) A sequined costume.
(c) A replica tent pole.
(d) A statue of trapeze artists.

5. What does the narrator suggest may have been Harold's final thought as he fell into the crowd on the day of the disaster?
(a) I don't want to die.
(b) I'm going to sue the tent company.
(c) Anna is with child.
(d) A surprise that he did not have Anna's hands in his.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did the ringmaster do to introduce the Flying Avalons on the day of the disaster?

2. What is the narrator's mother's name?

3. How many acts performed before Anna and her husband's act on the day of the disaster?

4. What detail about Anna does the narrator note was not mentioned in the newspaper accounts of the disaster?

5. What does the narrator sometimes do in her childhood room?

Short Essay Questions

1. What stands in the center of town as a reminder of the disaster? Where does the narrator find out about the events that day?

2. What events followed lightning striking the main tent pole while Harold and Anna were performing?

3. How is the scene at the circus before the disaster described? What was the weather like? What was the audience doing?

4. Why does the narrator say people in the East are at a disadvantage regarding weather changes than those in the West, where she used to live?

5. What type of performer was the narrator's mother? Where does she live and what is her medical condition?

6. How does the narrator describe the way her mother moves through their home in New Hampshire in paragraph 1?

7. Why does the narrator find it unsurprising that her mother was able to perform while seven months pregnant?

8. Describe Anna and Harold's typical trapeze performance.

9. Why does the narrator sometimes forget that her mother was part of the Flying Avalons?

10. What detail about Anna was not mentioned in the newspaper accounts of the disaster?

(see the answer keys)

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