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

2. Which boy is most aggressive about asking the two girls to take their clothes off?
(a) Tom Crick.
(b) Freddie Parr.
(c) Peter Baine.
(d) Dick Crick.

3. How did Tom's parents meet?
(a) His father came home as a war hero and his mother was the prettiest girl at the parade.
(b) His father delivered a crate of eels to the house where Tom's mother lived.
(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.

4. To what does Tom Crick compare the soil of the Fens?
(a) Pudding.
(b) Phlegm.
(c) Quicksand.
(d) An obese matron.

5. What does Freddie Parr do to Mary as revenge for setting him up to lose the competition because she knew he couldn't swim?
(a) He steals all her clothes and forces her to walk home naked.
(b) He slips a large eel into her knickers.
(c) He rolls her in wet mud until she is totally covered by it.
(d) He holds her under water until she nearly drowns.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Tom Crick think the French really celebrate on Bastille Day when they mark the beginning of the French Revolution?

2. What does Tom Crick tell his students is the question humans must always ask about history?

3. What is the landscape the novel is set in?

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

5. What gives the Atkinsons the decisive advantage over the other brewers in the Gildsey area?

Short Essay Questions

1. In chapter 22, the role of Ernest Atkinson in the events of Coronation Day is ambiguous. Please describe the events of Coronation Day and why they appear to have happened.

2. 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?

3. In chapter 14, Tom Crick's student Price asks him whether Tom thinks "we can find whatever we like in history." What it Tom's reply?

4. In chapter 35, Tom Crick returns home from a day of teaching to find Mary has done what?

5. 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?

6. 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?

7. In chapter 45, what is the symbolic significance of where Dick elected to hide the key from Tom to their mother's chest?

8. Chapter 39 is about Mary's reaction to her pregnancy and to Tom's joy about it. What does Tom find her doing and what is the reason she gives?

9. in chapter 44, Tom Crick and his wife Mary return the baby Mary stole to the Safeways store where she found it. What are Tom's fears as they approach the mother of the child and how does the mother react?

10. Chapter 36 is titled "About Nothing." What is the "nothing" that Tom refers to?

(see the answer keys)

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