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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What medical condition is Tom afraid that Mary might have?
(a) Schizophrenia.
(b) Diabetes.
(c) Alzheimer's disease.
(d) Bipolar disorder.

2. What is the great mystery about the eel that nobody has been able to explain?
(a) How long eels have existed.
(b) Where and how eels mate.
(c) What family of species the eel really belongs to.
(d) How eels can live both in salt water and fresh water.

3. How did Tom's parents meet?
(a) His father heard her shouting one day because she'd sprained an ankle and rescued her.
(b) His father came home as a war hero and his mother was the prettiest girl at the parade.
(c) His father was recovering from World War I in a mental asylum where his mother was a nurse.
(d) His father delivered a crate of eels to the house where Tom's mother lived.

4. What is NOT one of the names the Atkinsons give their special-occasion ales?
(a) The Grand '51.
(b) The Crimean Victory.
(c) The Empress of India.
(d) The Golden Jubilee.

5. Tom thinks that people who focus on ideals like the Declaration of the Rights of Man instead of the details of the French Revolution forget what important fact?
(a) That the revolutionaries were hypocrites.
(b) That no man is an island and no idea exists outside of time.
(c) That the revolution included barricades, bloodshed, and the guillotine.
(d) The importance of the birthday of Louis XVI.

6. What does Tom Crick's new-coined term "histrionics" refer to?
(a) Being hysterically enthusiastic about something.
(b) Changing history through technology.
(c) The combined study of history and economics.
(d) Throwing an angry fit because what has happened is history and cannot be changed.

7. Which one of the following is NOT one of the ghosts that is said to haunt the marches along the River Leem?
(a) The Headless Ferryman of Staithe.
(b) The Singing Swans of Wash Fen Mere.
(c) The Grim Hound of Gargoyle Hall.
(d) The Monk of Sudchurch.

8. What is the main fish that the Cricks and their neighbors catch for food?
(a) Carp.
(b) Trout.
(c) Salmon.
(d) Eel.

9. What tells Tom that he and Mary must finish their argument quickly because the park is about to close?
(a) The sunset glistening on the duck pond.
(b) The gruff voice of the park warden asking others to leave.
(c) The park-keeper's bell.
(d) The steady stream of dog owners towards the park gates.

10. What does Ernest Atkinson's maid Jane Shaw think she saw in the old Atkinson townhouse as the brewery was burning?
(a) Helen Atkinson laughing as she watches the brewery collapse from her window.
(b) Ernest Atkinson packing cans of leftover lighting fluid into a satchel.
(c) A black cat with its tail on fire.
(d) The ghost of Sarah Atkinson, shouting.

11. What is Ernest Atkinson's reaction to the fire?
(a) He weeps openly on front of the entire town.
(b) He frantically alerts the fire brigade, but they are too drunk to help.
(c) He shows no reaction and drives off to his country estate.
(d) He sings loudly with the other revelers as the brewery collapses.

12. Johannes Schmidt, whose theory about eels and their mating habits is considered the most accurate one, thought that eels mate where?
(a) The Gulf of Mexico.
(b) The Sargasso Sea.
(c) The Arctic Ocean.
(d) In river springs.

13. What does Tom Crick tell his students is the difference between animals and humans?
(a) Humans tell each other stories.
(b) Animals don't kill each other out of jealousy.
(c) Humans have the ability to forgive each other.
(d) Humans can plan for the future.

14. What does Dick do when he finds the bottle?
(a) He threatens Tom not to tell anyone about it or he will hurt Tom.
(b) He screams and later says he saw Sarah Atkinson's ghost.
(c) He ties it to the handle of his motorbike with a piece of string.
(d) He hides it in a wooden chest with a lock in the attic.

15. The Atkinsons are an important family in the Gildsey area for all of the following reasons EXCEPT:
(a) They ran a famous brewery.
(b) They owned a major textile factory.
(c) They helped drain the marshes by buiding locks and canals.
(d) They represented the Gildsey district in parliament.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the historical event that Tom Crick keeps returning to over and over again as he explains that history seems to move in a circle?

2. Which boy is most aggressive about asking the two girls to take their clothes off?

3. During the festivities for the newly crowned King George V, the New Atkinson Brewery is destroyed. How?

4. How does Tom react to Mary's statement that "everything has changed" with Freddie's death.

5. What is the name of the ale Ernest Atkinson brews that seems to cause the end of any respect for him in Gildsey because it is too good?

(see the answer keys)

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