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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. While the narrator is losing consciousness after Old Bird falls, what does he hear?

2. While hitching a ride home from Havre, what is between the narrator and the little girl in the back seat?

3. While the narrator and Mose are herding cattle, which type of cow goes first?

4. In Havre, what does the narrator do when the woman doesn't return with his money?

5. After returning from Havre and bathing, where does the narrator go?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does First Raise take the narrator to visit Yellow Calf and why is that significant?

2. At the very end of the book, what does the narrator determine to do and how is this different from the beginning of the book?

3. Why does the narrator treat Marlene badly?

4. Based on the behavior of the white traveling man, what may have happened if the narrator had driven him over the border?

5. How is the narrator treated by the people who give him a ride home from Havre, and how is that typical of his experiences with outsiders?

6. When the narrator goes out to visit Yellow Calf the second time, what does he learn about his grandmother?

7. After the narrator's grandmother dies, what is the mood of her family?

8. After the narrator spends several days in Havre, what does he finally want to do, and why?

9. When the narrator sees the white man arrested, how is he treated by the other bar patrons?

10. How does Lame Bull react to the death of the grandmother?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

During the story, the narrator is drunk, robbed, beaten, and nearly arrested. How much of the narrator's background contributes to his misfortune? How much is the result of his own choices?

Essay Topic 2

How does the grandmother's role in the story change by the end of the novel? How does her history affect the narrator?

Essay Topic 3

Why does the narrator fall in with the traveling white man? What is it about the man that attracts the narrator? Why?

(see the answer keys)

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