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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 do most islanders feel about Olafson's death?

2. Who is Isa Estquoy?

3. After his adventure with what does Thorfinn step on the shores of Norday Island?

4. What is the name of Jacob Olafson's boat?

5. What is at the center of a broch?

Short Essay Questions

1. When Sir James MacTavish is on his way to the battle of Bannockburn he meets a herdsman. What has the herdsman never heard of?

2. What are some of the things that village people buy at Isa Estquoy's shop on Norday Island?

3. What brings Jacob Olafson's wife Rena out of her fearful, furtive ways and back into life?

4. Why does the author call the gathering at the Norday blacksmith shop "the village parliament?"

5. Why does Jacob Olafson run away on the day of his sister's wedding?

6. What is Mr. Harcourt-Smithers place within the island community?

7. Why did the invading ship men stop coming to claim land in the Orkney islands?

8. What is the Solan Goose?

9. Why does Isa Estquoy know more than the minister and doctor about the community of Norday?

10. When headed down the Volga River what does the crew of the Solan Goose eat?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Why does Thorfinn leave when the Aerodome project arrives? In the previous chapters he has always dealt with conflict and trouble with stories and imagination? Why doesn't he do that in chapter 7? What has changed? Is the challenge simply too great for him to face? Or has he become a man and is making a different kind of choice?

Essay Topic 2

What is the effect of the Aerodrome project upon the Island of Norday? How does this project change their way of life forever? What do the workers bring? What do they destroy?

Essay Topic 3

Write a detailed character study of Thorfinn. How is he introduced? What are the major obstacles placed in the path of this protagonist? How does he evolve through the book? What does he learn and how does he change?

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