View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Just before the house collapses, what does it do?
(a) It begins performing multiple functions over and over.
(b) It shuts down entirely except for its "voice" function.
(c) It announces the wrong date and time.
(d) It dumps out all of the liquor, coffee, and milk in one last attempt to fight the fire.

2. In the poem "There Will Come Soft Rains," the plum trees are in "tremulous" white. Readers can infer that this refers to what?
(a) Blossoms.
(b) Butterflies.
(c) Snow.
(d) Ash.

3. From two thirty-five to four o'clock, what can readers infer that the family would ordinarily be doing?
(a) Cleaning.
(b) Having friends over to eat and listen to the radio.
(c) They would still be at work and school.
(d) Playing cards and having a snack.

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

5. 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 looks through the house for the family's other dog.
(d) It barks at every door.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is unusual about the images of the African animals?

2. What happens at ten o'clock?

3. What does Bradbury compare the chemical fire-fighting foam to?

4. Which room recreates the sights, sounds, and smells of the African savanna?

5. To what does the phrase "the children's hour" allude?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What is the intended effect of juxtaposing the images of the silhouettes with the description of the house's continued paranoia about intruders?

3. Explain the significance of the nursery decor.

4. What is the purpose of ending the story with the house fire? Why not just end it with the reading of the Teasdale poem?

5. Explain what evidence there is that the house deliberately causes the dog's death.

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

7. What is the difference between the focus of Teasdale's poem and the focus of Bradbury's short story?

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

9. Explain the inclusion of the Sara Teasdale poem in this story.

10. In what way is the house's "speech" like nursery rhymes, and what is the purpose of this choice?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,174 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample