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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 happens to the dog when it cannot get into the kitchen?
2. In the poem "There Will Come Soft Rains," the plum trees are in "tremulous" white. Readers can infer that this refers to what?
3. The robot mice are said to live in "warrens." This means that they live in what?
4. What is the name of the poem that the house reads after dinner?
5. "Seven-nine, breakfast time" is an example of which rhyming technique?
Short Essay Questions
1. Explain what is ironic about the rain in the nursery scenery.
2. What is ironic about Bradbury's use of rain in this story?
3. What is suggested by the fact that the house repeats the date "three times for memory's sake"?
4. How does Bradbury use the dates on which the story takes place as a form of foreshadowing?
5. Explain the significance of the nursery decor.
6. 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.
7. What is the difference between the focus of Teasdale's poem and the focus of Bradbury's short story?
8. The garbage disposal in the kitchen is referred to as a "metal throat." What techniques are at use here, and what is their purpose?
9. What is the likely purpose of including mechanical creatures such as rats and roaches?
10. In what way is the house's "speech" like nursery rhymes, and what is the purpose of this choice?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
Despite the comforts of the McClellan house, some of the details included evoke not comfort but something more sinister. Why are there mechanical rats and roaches in the house? Why is the fire extinguishing foam referred to as "snakes"? What does this imagery have to do with the simulated natural beauty of the nursery and the incinerator lurking in the basement shadows like "Baal"?
Essay Topic 2
Choose a piece of science fiction--a short story, novel, comic book, video game (that has a developed plot and characters), television show, etc. Think carefully about what messages this work is trying to send--not only about the future, but about the present. In two paragraphs, explain one message about the future and one message about the past, supporting your claims with textual details.
Essay Topic 3
Explain which details in "There Will Come Soft Rains" are explicitly taken from the history surrounding the dropping of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Offer a thesis about what these details are meant to accomplish and argue whether this is a successful strategy.
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This section contains 989 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
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