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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What was J.P. doing when he met his wife?

2. In what state does the story take place?

3. Whose car do the narrator and his girlfriend take to the facility?

4. In the narrator's memories, what is the landlord doing one morning?

5. What term of endearment does the narrator use for his girlfriend?

Short Essay Questions

1. How is friendship presented in the story?

2. What is the plot of "To Build a Fire," the story the narrator remembers reading?

3. Discuss how J.P.'s experience as a child in the well mirrors his experience as an adult alcoholic.

4. Describe the character Frank Martin.

5. Why is the narrator so enthralled by J.P.'s stories?

6. Give of an example of how the narrator practices avoidance.

7. How do the narrator's two trips to the treatment facility differ?

8. Why does the narrator not tell J.P. that he woke up on New Year's Day wanting a drink?

9. What are the signs that J.P. is making a recovery?

10. What does Roxy's name suggest?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How do compassion and forgiveness figure into the story?

Essay Topic 2

The story explores J.P.'s wife's infidelity and his outraged reaction to it. Yet the narrator skims over the fact that he was unfaithful to his wife. What do the two examples of infidelity represent? Is J.P.'s wife's infidelity more noteworthy or unexpected than the narrator's? Why or why not?

Essay Topic 3

Will J.P. and the narrator recover from alcoholism? Why or why not?

(see the answer keys)

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