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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 does Joshua's data show?

2. What does the statue at the mercy camp resemble?

3. How has Taddeo responded to the Memorabilia?

4. Why is Zerchi late to give Mrs. Grales confession?

5. Why is Paulo fasting?

Short Essay Questions

1. How is Zerchi required to practice what he preaches about suffering and euthanasia?

2. Why does the idea that mankind is a servant race created by a society of betters appeal to Taddeo?

3. What is Gault afraid is Hannegan's intention for the abbey?

4. What story does Zerchi tell the dying woman, to convince her not to kill herself and her child?

5. Describe Mad Bear's political plans.

6. Why does Paulo feel like a shoemaker in a village of shoemakers?

7. What power does New Rome give Joshua's colony, in the event of the destruction of the Earth?

8. What might lead the reader to believe Benjamin's story about his age?

9. What is the literary style of the story of the Flame Deluge read to Taddeo at the beginning of Chapter 18?

10. What angers Paulo about the news of the governments' reactions to the nuclear incident?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the nature of knowledge in the novel.

Part 1) What do the Memorabilia represent? Why do the monks want to preserve it?

Part 2) Is knowledge good or evil or neutral? What are the consequences, positive and negative, of mankind's gaining of knowledge? How does knowledge in the novel relate to the story of the Garden of Eden and the fall of man for tasting the fruit of the tree of knowledge?

Part 3) Can knowledge be permanently lost?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the mutations in the novel.

Part 1) How do the mutated humans in the novel stretch the definition of what it means to be human? How do they create quandaries for the Church, in defining humanity?

Part 2) How do the normal humans in the novel treat the mutants, and what does this say about humanity?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the structure of the novel. Describe the relationship of all three sections and how they represent different stages in the development of human culture. Why did the writer choose this unconventional structure, which covers three time periods and three different sets of characters? Why is there no continuous main character in the novel (except perhaps the Old Jew), and how does that affect your experience of the novel?

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