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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 was Elwood's answer when he was later asked "how many licks he got" (68) at the White House?

2. For how many years had the Nickel Academy been closed when the college students located the secret cemetery on its grounds?

3. How many minutes did each Nickel Boy get inside the communal showers each day?

4. During what period of Elwood's life did he play a game wherein he tried to guess how may "Negro patrons" (18) were seated in the Richmond Hotel's dining room?

5. How many of Elwood's long-time acquaintances beat him up and broke the chain on his bike in retaliation for his interruption of their theft spree?

Short Essay Questions

1. What happened to prevent Elwood from attending his first class at Marvin Griggs Technical?

2. How did Elwood turn the nasty trick played by the Richmond Hotel staff into a boon?

3. What Christmas present did Elwood receive in 1962 that the narrator described as "the best gift of his life" (11)?

4. How many boys were incarcerated at Nickel at the time of Elwood's arrival and in what way was the campus divided into two?

5. Who or what was Black Beauty within the twisted world of Nickel?

6. What was ironic about Harriet's punishment of Elwood upon learning that he had participated in a protest?

7. Who was Mr. Hill?

8. In what way does Whitehead intertwine the motif of dreams with the theme of escape within Chapter 7?

9. For what reason was Elwood unable to get a full night's sleep the day of his arrival at Nickel?

10. In what way does Whitehead employ foreshadowing about Superintendent Spencer's character?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Could The Nickel Boys be classified as a coming-of-age story? Why or why not?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss Whitehead's choice to tell the story of The Nickel Boys using a third person omniscient narrator. What elements of the novel's themes lend themselves to this choice and what are Whitehead’s intended effects on the reader?

Essay Topic 3

Choose an object from The Nickel Boys, such as the strap, the record album containing Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speeches, or some other symbolic object and discuss its overall meaning and its connection to themes within the text.

(see the answer keys)

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