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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 Kramer think is keeping Cecil Hayden from getting a position at a better law firm?

2. What physical attribute of the Italian court artist does Kramer notice most?

3. What perjury does Sherman commit in this chapter?

4. What were Henry and Roland doing when Henry was hit by the Mercedes, according to Roland?

5. Which of these adjectives does Roland Auburn use to describe Maria in the City Light coverage in Chapter 23?

Short Essay Questions

1. What happens to Sherman McCoy in the holding cell awaiting the calling of his case?

2. Which of Killian's promises are broken during his arrest?

3. What story does the City Light run as a result of Fallow's meeting with Arthur Ruskin?

4. Why has no one heard of Roland Auburn even though he has been in the papers?

5. How does Larry Kramer characterize Roland Auburn in Chapter 19?

6. How does Sherman's opinion of his father change in Chapter 21 and why?

7. In what way does Shelly Thomas disagree with Kramer about the McCoy case?

8. How does the information of Maria Ruskin's complicity in the hit-and-run eventually reach Peter Fallow?

9. How is Sherman's experience at the di Ducci event different from his experience at the Bavardages'?

10. As Kramer is interviewing Maria Ruskin, what does he realize he loves about his job?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Location is very important to the novel, because Tom Wolfe's is a segregated place, where entire borough's can go unexplored by large groups of people. Write an essay comparing the world of Manhattan with that of the Bronx. Cite descriptions by narrator and character and specific incidents that occur in the plot. What do these places mean to different groups of New Yorkers?

Essay Topic 2

As life becomes more complicated and precarious for Sherman McCoy, fewer and fewer supportive people in his life offer him assistance. This is a shame, because those who are not connected to the case are the most sensible and honest around him, his family. Write an essay about the three truth-tellers in his family. How does Sherman lose each of them? How do each of them serve in some way as his conscience?

Part 1) Judy McCoy

Part 2) Sherman's Father

Part 3) Campbell McCoy

Essay Topic 3

Sherman McCoy, at the beginning of the novel, considers himself a "Master of the Universe." Write an essay about what that means in his life. How does it affect his attitude toward family? Fidelity? His work? What is Tom Wolfe saying about the nature of capitalism in the 1980s through the character of Sherman McCoy?

(see the answer keys)

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