Eleven – General Understanding Quiz

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Approximate Reading Times

Quick Read: under 5 minutes
Short Story: 5 to 30 minutes
Novelette: 30 to 90 minutes
Novella: 1.5 to 2.5 hours

Roses, Rhododendron
Short Story by Alice Adams. The narrator recalls how, after she and her mother moved from Boston to North Carolina, a lifelong friendship developed after she "fell permanently in love with a house, with a family of three people and with an area of countryside".
A Pilgrim Yankee’s Progress
Novelette by Nick Joaquin. Thanks to a series of misunderstandings arising from different cultural perspectives, an uneasy relationship develops between a Filipino family recovering from the trauma of World War 2 and an American soldier visiting the grave of an uncle who died during the Spanish-American War.
The Thakur’s Well / Thakur Ka Kuan
Short Story by Premchand. An low-caste Indian woman needs water for her sick husband. The only well in the village available to her is contaminated, and she decides that her only option is to risk a severe beating by secretly drawing water from the well of the high-caste Thakur.

The Babus of Nayanjore
Short Story by Rabindranath Tagore. Despite living in poverty, the last male descendent of a once wealthy Indian noble family maintains his dignity and aristocratic bearing. A neighbor plays a cruel trick on him that backfires, finding himself part of the old man’s family and greatly boosting his self-esteem
Children of the Corn
Novelette by Stephen King. A horror/thriller involving a boy with his throat cut who runs out onto a country road, a seemingly deserted town where the only community building still in use is a desecrated church, a hoard of murderous children, and a mysterious presence living in the surrounding cornfields.
A Perfect Day for Bananafish
Short Story by J. D. Salinger. A returned soldier suffering the long-term effects of PTSD tries to cope by avoiding the company of adults (including his vain, materialistic wife) and finding pleasure in music, poetry and spending time with young children. Unfortunately, this isn’t enough.
Ripe Figs
Quick Read by Kate Chopin. A reflection of different perspectives of the young and old on maturity, patience and the passage of time. For an old woman who marks events by natural cycles, time moves quickly. For a young woman looking forward to something, it passes ever so slowly.

Born Worker
Grade 7-8 Story by Gary Soto. A teenage boy is lured into an odd-job partnership by a fast-talking cousin. He learns that there are people like himself who find honor in honest hard work, and those like his cousin, prepared to lie and cheat to get a “free ride”.
Snapshots of a Wedding
Short Story by Bessie Head. A lot of the traditional courtesies are missing at this “modern” Botswanan wedding and most of the guests are wondering if the groom, who is “rich in cattle and loved and respected by all who knew him”, has made the right choice for a bride.
Be-ers and Doers
Short Story by Budge Wilson. A boy rebels after years of maternal pressure to change from being a "be-er" (a person who is laid back and takes time out to savour the world around them) into a “do-er” (someone driven by success and always on the go).