Teenage Wasteland – Quiz

Teenage Wasteland – 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

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Three Girls
Short Story by Joyce Carol Oates. Two college girls encounter a woman they believe to be a heavily disguised Marilyn Monroe browsing in a used bookstore. For the girls, coming to grips with their sexuality and mutual attraction, the shared experience triggers a first kiss.
Araby
Short Story by James Joyce. An adolescent boy is infatuated with a friend’s older sister and becomes obsessed with the idea of visiting the “Grand Oriental Fete” (Araby) to buy her an exotic gift. Arriving shortly before closing time, the experience is not what he expected.
Mother and Daughter
Grade 5-6 Story by Gary Soto. The relationship between a struggling single mother and her eighth-grade daughter is tested by a wardrobe malfunction at a school dance. After fleeing the fall dance to avoid embarrassment, the girl directs her frustration and anger toward her mother.
The Challenge
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Dead Men’s Path
Quick Read by Chinua Achebe. The new headmaster of a rural Nigerian mission school is full of reformist zeal. When he builds a fence to stop villagers walking through the school grounds to access a path important to their animist beliefs, the villagers take drastic action.

Think of England
Short Story by Peter Ho Davies. A sixteen-year-old Welsh barmaid will always remember D-day. The bar was full of celebrating English soldiers. First she had to put up with offensive jokes and later, her secret “sweetheart” (an English soldier she had known for only a week) tried to rape her.
The Tractor and the Corn Goddess
Short Story by Mulk Raj Anand. A tongue-in cheek story about a landowner’s progressive son who imports a tractor to improve the lives of workers. The focus of the story is his ingenious method of overcoming the villagers’ fears and indignation associated with the tractor’s “rape” of their Corn Goddess.
The Possibility of Evil
Short Story by Shirley Jackson. A haughty old woman sends anonymous, hurtful letters to various people in her community. Although based purely on suspicion, she believes that her letters will be of benefit to the recipients. Her objective may be noble, but many of the thoughts expressed are evil
Crazy Sunday
Short Story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. An up-and-coming Hollywood screenwriter falls in love with the wife of a powerful, adulterous movie director. Thanks to Hollywood’s toxic, highly competitive culture, all three suffer major insecurity issues. The woman’s life lacks intimacy, but not the kind the screenwriter has in mind.
The Killers
Short Story by Ernest Hemingway. Two “hit men” come to a small-town restaurant to shoot a man as a favor to a friend. The intended victim doesn’t turn up, so they leave. When a restaurant customer goes to warn him, he says he has already accepted his fate.