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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. 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.

3. What does Ernest Atkinson do with the three remaining steam ships he owns?
(a) He names them after his daughter, Helen I, Helen II, and Helen III.
(b) He converts them into pleasure cruise ships.
(c) He donates them to the army to aid in the war effort.
(d) He sells them to the city of Gildsey for the use of the fire brigade.

4. Why does his most outspoken student reject Tom Crick's attempt to teach the class history?
(a) He thinks Tom is senile.
(b) He thinks history is imaginary and doesn't matter.
(c) He thinks Tom is lying to the class.
(d) He hates school in general, and Tom is easy to pick on.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What marks the end of Ernest Atkinson's political career?

2. Tom Crick's wife, Mary, has been sent to a mental institution. Why?

3. What World War I battle was Tom's father injured in and saw his brother killed in earlier in the day?

4. 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?

5. Henry Crick, Tom's father, is obsessed with one question about Freddie's death that he repeats over and over again. What is it?

Short Essay Questions

1. In chapter 27, Tom Crick explains what he means by Natural History. What does he think it is a study of, truly?

2. At the end of chapter 45, Tom and Dick have a conversation about Mary and her baby. What is the one thing Dick confesses to Harry, and what are the two things Tom tells Dick?

3. In chapter 24, Tom, Dick, Freddie Parr, Mary Metcalf, and a few other kids are playing together near the water. What is the importance of the eel to all the events that transpire afterwards?

4. In chapter 21, Tom Crick asks, "when the past tries to demolish itself, how do you demolish the past?" What is he getting at?

5. In chapter 8, Tom Crick speaks about how humans tell stories. What are some examples he uses about how history and fiction sometimes seem to overlap?

6. In chapter 41, Mary makes a decision to see someone for help with her miscarriage. Whom does Mary want to go and see?

7. In chapter 37, Tom Crick discusses the idea of terror and how it aids people in pretending they're changing the world for the better. What are some examples Tom gives from the French Revolution?

8. In chapter 4, what is the reasoning the headmaster Lewis Scott gives Tom Crick for laying Tom off and merging history with General Studies?

9. In chapter 42, a new-found confidante helps Mary to get something Mary wants. What is that?

10. In chapter 1, the narrator describes the Crick family's relationship with the Fens how?

(see the answer keys)

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