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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. Why does the house let the dog in?
(a) It wants the dog to find the family.
(b) It is programmed to let in any dog or cat.
(c) It recognizes the dog.
(d) It is an accident.

2. What does the dog do once it gets inside the house?
(a) It begins eating the spoiled food.
(b) It falls asleep in the nursery.
(c) It barks at every door.
(d) It looks through the house for the family's other dog.

3. Which room recreates the sights, sounds, and smells of the African savanna?
(a) The living room.
(b) The nursery.
(c) The bathroom.
(d) The kitchen.

4. What does Bradbury compare the chemical fire-fighting foam to?
(a) Seafoam.
(b) Clouds.
(c) Snakes.
(d) Elephants.

5. In the sentence "The morning house lay empty," there is an example of which technique?
(a) Punning.
(b) Parallelism.
(c) Metaphor.
(d) Passive voice.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Bradbury say that the house is angry about when the dog shows up?

2. What happens at ten-fifteen?

3. Who is Baal?

4. What is the job of the robot mice?

5. What is strange about how the nursery reacts to the fire?

Short Essay Questions

1. Explain the purpose of the story's allusion to Longfellow's poem "The Children's Hour."

2. Describe the image that ends the story and explain its significance.

3. Explain the allusion to Odysseus's dog and how it functions in the story.

4. The garbage disposal in the kitchen is referred to as a "metal throat." What techniques are at use here, and what is their purpose?

5. How do the cleaning mice allude to Cinderella, and what is the purpose of this allusion?

6. Explain what is ironic about the rain in the nursery scenery.

7. What is the meaning of the silhouettes on the side of the house?

8. What is ironic about Bradbury's use of rain in this story?

9. How does Bradbury use the dates on which the story takes place as a form of foreshadowing?

10. Explain how the pun in the line "The morning house lay empty" explains why the house is empty and foreshadows the story's later revelation of the family's fate.

(see the answer keys)

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