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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 do Doodle and Brother leave to do after lunch?
(a) Search to see if they can find the ibis's mate.
(b) Climb vines at Old Woman Swamp.
(c) Box at Old Woman Swamp.
(d) Go rowing at Horsehead Landing.

2. At first, Daddy is upset by the hurricane and looks defeated. What does he do that makes Brother and Doodle think that things will be all right?
(a) Raises his fist and curses the weather and the Republican party.
(b) Scoops Doodle up and dances with him in the rain.
(c) Says a prayer and tells them God will take care of them.
(d) Jumps into a puddle in the field and pretends to swim.

3. What does Daddy have Mr. Heath make for Doodle?
(a) A wheelchair.
(b) A special bed.
(c) A cart.
(d) A casket.

4. In the description of the garden "ironweeds grew rank amid the purple phlox" (1), what does "rank" mean is true about the ironweeds?
(a) They are everywhere and possibly also smell bad.
(b) They are more important than the phlox.
(c) They are taller than the phlox.
(d) They are in orderly rows in between the phlox.

5. What literary techniques are shown in the phrase, "[I]t lay on the earth like a broken vase of red flowers" (9)?
(a) Imagery, foreshadowing, and simile.
(b) Metaphor, allusion, and symbolism.
(c) Imagery, metaphor, and allegory.
(d) Symbolism, flashback, and euphemism.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why does Brother think that it is a good thing for Doodle to have a silly name?

2. When Brother says that both he and Doodle believed in his "infallibility" (7), what does he mean that they believe?

3. Who uses a book to find the name of the ibis?

4. Who claims that dead birds are bad luck?

5. On what does Brother blame his cruelty toward Doodle?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the narrator make Doodle do in the barn loft, and how does Doodle react?

2. When they are eating lunch on the day the ibis appears, what argument are the brothers having?

3. What images of death does the story open with?

4. Which character says "And bless the Pearsons, whose boy Joe was lost at Belleau Wood" (8) and what does this comment foreshadow?

5. Where is the grindstone and what is its symbolic meaning?

6. What is the family's reaction to Doodle when he is born?

7. How does Doodle die?

8. When the boys are almost ready to show the family that Doodle can walk and they keep hinting that they have a big secret, what does Nicey tell them and what is its thematic significance?

9. What changes in Doodle's living situation when he learns to crawl?

10. When "Brother" dances around with Aunt Nicey to celebrate Doodle walking, what happens, and why it is it ironic?

(see the answer keys)

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