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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What secret does Tom reveal to his students about Lewis Scott, the headmaster of the school?
(a) The headmaster cheated to receive his university degree.
(b) The headmaster was once arrested for cross-dressing.
(c) The headmaster is having an affair with his secretary, Miss Plum.
(d) The headmaster keeps whisky bottles in his filing cabinet.

2. What causes the soldiers at the 1915 Royal Cambrideshire Militia parade to stumble out of formation?
(a) Heckling by Ernest Atkinson.
(b) Drinking Coronation Ale.
(c) The sound of a beer barge foghorn.
(d) Helen Atkinson's beauty.

3. What about the scene at the Lode does NOT remind Tom of the later scene of Freddie Parr's death?
(a) Freddie Parr in the water.
(b) Dick standing on the wooden bridge.
(c) A bottle drifting in the water.
(d) A boat-hook lying on the riverbank.

4. How did Tom's parents meet?
(a) His father delivered a crate of eels to the house where Tom's mother lived.
(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 heard her shouting one day because she'd sprained an ankle and rescued her.

5. What is the River Tom Crick describes at great length to explain how the landscape of the novel's setting is formed?
(a) The Tyne.
(b) The Ouse.
(c) The Thames.
(d) The Cam.

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

7. On the day that Freddie Parr was found dead in the river, Mary confesses what to Tom?
(a) That she saw Freddie attack Dick the night before by the river bridge.
(b) That she is about to run off to London to hide from her father.
(c) That she is pregnant from Tom, but told Dick it was Freddie's child.
(d) That she pushed Freddie into the river.

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

9. What about Mary strikes Tom when he returns from Germany at the end of World War II to marry her?
(a) How tough and independent she has become.
(b) How frail and vulnerable she seems.
(c) How much more beautiful she has become.
(d) How much of her old spark and curiosity she has lost.

10. Who says, "explaining's a way of avoiding the facts while you pretend to get near to them?"
(a) Mary Crick.
(b) Tom Crick.
(c) Price.
(d) Lewis Scott.

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

12. What does Ernest Atkinson do that marks the first step in his family's economic decline?
(a) He takes a ruinous Grand Tour of Europe.
(b) He sells Kessling Hall, their estate.
(c) He sells the Water Transport Company.
(d) He closes the Atkinson brewery.

13. Who is the patron saint of Gildsey?
(a) St. Julian of Norwich.
(b) St. Gertrude of the Marshes.
(c) St. Mary.
(d) St. Gunnhilda.

14. 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.

15. Which part of London does the couple move to once they are married and Tom takes a job as a history teacher?
(a) Notting Hill.
(b) Greenwich.
(c) Knightsbridge.
(d) Chelsea.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Ernest Atkinson do with the three remaining steam ships he owns?

2. To what does Tom Crick compare the soil of the Fens?

3. What is one of the books Tom Crick reads that he finds in the trove of books collected by his great-aunts Louisa and Dora?

4. What does Tom compare the sound of Dick's motorcycle to the evening Mary has broken up with Tom?

5. What game are Tom Crick, Freddie Parr, Peter Baine, and Terry Coe playing with Mary Metcalf and Shirley Alford on the banks of the Hockwell Lode as Dick Crick looks on?

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