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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 person do both the narrator and her mother of Home think about simultaneously?

2. In Departures, according to the young seminarian, for how long do Jesuits meditate each day?

3. In the story Trains, how old are Danica and Jane?

4. Who is Danica writing a postcard to about which that Jane criticizes her?

5. What does the priest read while he is sitting at his mother's death bed?

Short Essay Questions

1. What secret does the narrator of Lawns finally reveal to her boyfriend and her mother? How do they react?

2. What does G.R. ask Cody after he hears Cody's story of his near accident off the mountain that day?

3. Where is the priest going at the end of Departures, and where has he been? How is he traveling?

4. How does Casey know Aunt Granny Lith, and what does he do when he sees her again?

5. In the story Daddy Garbage, how does Strayhorn discover the baby in the box?

6. In the short story Train, who are the two little girls on the train, how old are they, and where are they going?

7. Who is the main character of Departures? How old is he when the story opens? Where is he going?

8. Why does Daniel not want the narrator of Home to see his back?

9. Who is Vopotik in the story Helping?

10. How do the boys in Murderers get caught on their misadventure, and what happens to them?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In his Introduction, Tobias Wolff quotes Kafka as saying literature is like an axe with which to break "the frozen sea within us." What did Kafka mean by this? What two stories in the collection had this affect on you and why?

Essay Topic 2

In his story The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien differentials between the physical things the soldiers carried on their backs and those they carry in their hearts and minds. Contrast and compare the physical and emotional things the men carried and how each affect a soldier.

Essay Topic 3

In the story Dog Heaven, the author has created two children and a dog who live in a work of adults involved in the military. The narrator therefore focuses the story on the elements of childhood most recognized by people growing up. Discuss three of those elements and how they help the reader to relate to the story and to the narrator as a child.

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