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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 do the children at the park become obsessed with after the Woman has not visited for two weeks?

2. What do the children ask the Woman for after she shares her box of chocolates with them?

3. What does the narrator do once she hears people saying that the Woman in the Purple Skirt leaves her work cart too messy?

4. On the Woman in the Purple Skirt's third day of work, does the narrator go to work on her day off?

5. How did the Woman in the Purple Skirt react when she and the narrator collided outside of the elevator one day at work?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is unusual about the Woman in the Purple Skirt the evening the narrator sees her in the shopping district late after her third day of work?

2. What rumor does the narrator overhear about the Woman in the Purple Skirt?

3. What leads the Woman to leave the hotel and never return?

4. Describe the conversation between the Woman and Supervisor Tsukada about the hotel shampoo and why the Woman does not use it.

5. Why does the narrator go to work on her day off on the Woman's third day of work? Why does she return home?

6. What does the director discuss at the second monthly meeting the Woman attends? What does he task supervisors with and how do they feel about this?

7. How does the staff behavior toward the Woman change after they find out about her affair with the director? How does the Woman respond?

8. Where do the director and the Woman go on their date after the coffee shop? Which place do they stay the longest?

9. What happens on the morning bus when the narrator notices a bit of rice on the Woman in the Purple Skirt's jacket?

10. What does the Woman discover when she sniffs the other staff members' water bottles? Does she check the narrator's? Why or why not?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Choose a character and discuss their role in creating conflict in the book.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay comparing and contrasting the narrator and the Woman in the Purple Skirt. What details help develop their character and what do these details tell you about them? What is their background? How do they know each other? How do they interact? In what ways are they similar or different? Explain.

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay about the author of The Woman in the Purple Skirt. Who is she? What else has she written? How is The Woman in the Purple Skirt similar or different from her other works?

(see the answer keys)

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