View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. How old is the elder of Crowded’s sons?

2. Which of the following short stories does Sugar reference?

3. What childhood game does Sugar reference?

4. How old does Sugar note being when her mother died?

5. What is noted as “the essential work of literary art” (8)?

Short Essay Questions

1. What reasons does Sugar posit for Crowded’s sons to resist leaving home?

2. How does Sugar euthanize the baby bird she finds with a broken neck?

3. What practice of intimacy does Sugar’s husband attempt with her that neither actually enjoys?

4. What questions does Sugar note having asked herself when considering becoming a parent?

5. What does Sugar report inheriting from her mother?

6. What does Sugar cite as a deciding factor in which letters get answers from her?

7. How is the choice of Strayed to write as Sugar explained?

8. What point does Sugar make to the letter-writer with whom she discusses the Beauty and the Beast story?

9. What favorable qualities does Haunted by His Sexual Past’s boyfriend have?

10. Why does Sugar note the youth with whom she worked in advocacy esteemed her?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Similarly, the lengths of chapters influence reading. What pattern of chapter-length is present in the epistolary memoir, if any? What effect does the length of chapters have on the reading? How is the effect achieved?

Essay Topic 2

Both the letter-writers whose concerns are addressed in the book and the respondent most commonly operate under pseudonyms (that is, false names). What functions does the pseudonymization serve? What in the book indicates as much, and how does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

Readerly attention focuses on Sugar’s comments that “You have to pay your own electric bill. You have to be kind. You have to give it all you got. You have to find people who love you truly and love them back with the same truth. But that’s all” (130). Do your experience and what you observe in the world bear out the comments? How or how not?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 638 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample