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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 American writer referred to the "imp of the perverse"?
(a) Edgar Allen Poe.
(b) H.P. Lovecraft.
(c) Emily Dickinson.
(d) Herman Melville.

2. To what animal did Lynch allude in making his analogy about living at the midpoint?
(a) Salmon.
(b) California condors.
(c) Monarch butterflies.
(d) Elk.

3. Where was Reader when he died?
(a) In bed.
(b) In his easy chair.
(c) In his car.
(d) In the kitchen.

4. When did Lynch feel his midpoint had arrived?
(a) The day he took over the family business.
(b) The day he buried his mother.
(c) The day his second child was born.
(d) The day he buried his father.

5. What is the name of the river that divides Milford in half?
(a) Michigan.
(b) Huron.
(c) Ohio.
(d) Liffey.

Short Answer Questions

1. When were the first sealed caskets made?

2. Approximately what percentage of Americans move at any given time?

3. In what year did Jack Kevorkian assist in his first suicide?

4. What age was Lynch at that time?

5. Where did Lynch meet Sweeney?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Sweeney approach the consuming of food delicacies?

2. Why do people feel the need to memorialize the dead?

3. How does Lynch view a world in which certain deaths are acceptable (abortion, war, capital punishment)?

4. How did Lynch react to the body of the young man who shot himself in Chapter 9?

5. Describe Matthew Sweeney's personality.

6. What perspective did Lynch reach on the night his mother was buried?

7. What did Lynch mean when he said that "in even the best of caskets, it never all fits"?

8. How does Lynch view the current state of debate over abortion?

9. What lesson did Lynch want to teach Sweeney with his story of the man killed by the falling vehicle at the scrap metal yard?

10. How do Lynch and his wife differ in their views of Milford as they walk through town in Chapter 7?

(see the answer keys)

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