View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who does not recognize Dunworthy?

2. Who is another victim brought into the hospital as Dunworthy is speaking to Badri?

3. What is not working?

4. What does Kivrin plan to say about her "brother?"

5. What do many angry people want to do?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Kivrin's interpreter do and does she expect to need it?

2. How does Colin explain his presence in the quarantine line?

3. What does Kivrin write in her Doomsday Book in Chapter 14?

4. Why is Dunworthy out trying to find an open store?

5. With whom does Kivrin speak and what is he doing?

6. What does Kivrin think in the confusion generated by her high fever?

7. What does Badri keep saying and where does Dunworthy take him?

8. Describe James Dunworthy.

9. What is the policy about sending historians to the medieval period and how is the department getting around the policy?

10. Where does Dunworthy go after he's medically cleared, and what does he learn?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Kivrin learns that the twelve year old Rosmund has been betrothed to an older man, Sir Bloet and is soon to marry. Discuss the following:

1. What are Kivrin's reactions to the news about Rosemund's upcoming marriage? Are her reactions typical for the time in which she is visiting? Why or why not?

2. Why do you think Rosemund accepts the idea of marrying a man so much older than she is? Do you think at her age she even understands what marriage means in the sexual sense?

Essay Topic 2

Often titles reveal much about one or more aspects of a novel. Discuss the following:

1. What do you think is the purpose of a title? How closely related to a major theme(s) of a book do you think a title should be? Or should it be?

2. How is the phrase "Doomsday Book" relevant to the action of the novel? What sort of emotional/psychological response does the title evoke? Why do you think Willis chose this title (if she does)? If you were perusing the library for a book to read and saw this title, would it pique your interest? Why or why not. Does it seem to be the best title for the book?

3. If you were the writer of The Doomsday Book and your editor says the title must be changed, what would you choose? Why?

Essay Topic 3

In order to set up the plot, the writer has to introduce two implausible events. Discuss the following:

1. Research and define the term "narrative contrivance" and give several examples of it from other books and movies you have read.

2. Analyze the two events that seem a bit too coincidental or farfetched that sets the rest of the story in motion. Consider that Montoya has unearthed some sort of virus from the excavation that is still viable and the fact that Badri is the first one to exhibit symptoms of the virus and that he does not communicate immediately while walking with Dunworthy back to the lab that Kivrin is in 1348. Is there any way theses "contrivances" could be left out and the plot move forward in much the same way that it does? What other ways are there to have gotten the same results?

3. Is much fiction in some ways a contrivance? Why or why not?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,140 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample