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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 does Paps say to the narrator as he dries him off in Chapter 10, YOU BETTER COME?
(a) "I thought you disappeared" (49).
(b) Paps jokes "about needing to make some more boys to take our [the brothers'] places" (46).
(c) "Get my boots from the closet" (49).
(d) "You grew" (46).

2. What does Ma say to Paps on the way home from the lake?
(a) "How else do you expect to him learn?" (21).
(b) "He's alive! He's alive!" (23)
(c) "He is going to learn" (21).
(d) "What? Do you want me to teach him how to fly?" (22).

3. Why is the Chapter 2 called, NEVER-NEVER TIME?
(a) The boys worry that time will end, and they will die.
(b) It is a nickname for the days when the boys do not have to go to school.
(c) The boys never feel seen or heard by Ma and Paps.
(d) The boys chant this to Ma after squirting her.

4. At the start of the novel, how many boys, also brothers, are introduced?
(a) 4.
(b) 3.
(c) 6.
(d) 2.

5. What object does the narrator use to tell the reader the size of the fish in the lake as mentioned on Page 19?
(a) Crescents.
(b) Leaves.
(c) Cigarettes.
(d) Clumps.

Short Answer Questions

1. What do the brothers ask strangers to buy them outside the drugstore in Chapter 5, US PROPER?

2. What color is the family's new truck?

3. What job does Paps finally get?

4. Who is Paps listening to the radio when the boys come home after school in Chapter 3, THE HERITAGE (8)?

5. Why does Paps most likely give the brothers a bath when he arrives at home in Chapter 10, YOU BETTER COME??

Short Essay Questions

1. What kind of support does Lina provide to the narrator's family when she comes to visit?

2. How does the reader know that Ma was a naive teenager when it came to sex as explained in Chapter 6, US PROPER?

3. What previous incident may have led Joel to ask a pregnant woman outside a drugstore if she was tricked into having a baby?

4. Having the knowledge of Ma's grueling work schedule and unstable behavior, why might the narrator say after Ma awakes confused, "It was a Sunday, but no one told Ma that" (5)?

5. How do you know that the narrator and his brothers are ravenous for more life according to the first page of the novel?

6. What metaphorical significance can be determined by the fact that Ma and the narrator cannot swim and hang on to Paps in order to stay afloat?

7. At the end of Chapter 10, NIGHT WATCH, Paps says,"We're never going to escape this...Never" (60). What is he sure the narrator's family will not escape?

8. What personality traits and behaviors are both implicitly and explicitly conveyed through the description of the brothers' behaviors in the opening Chapters? How do you come to these conclusions?

9. How does the narrator feel when Paps and Ma discover him after the narrator nearly drowns in the lake?

10. Why do the narrator and Joel hide in a crawlspace when Paps returns home after being gone for many days?

(see the answer keys)

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