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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 language has Kivrin studied?

2. What is Kivrin now certain of?

3. What does a medic ask of Dunworthy's group?

4. Who is the head of the History Department at Oxford?

5. What does Badri sat to Dunworthy?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Where and how is Kivrin when she wakes?

3. Where is Gawyn going and why does Kivrin want to go also but can not?

4. Describe James Dunworthy.

5. What is Kivrin trying to do in chapter 6 but having a hard time with?

6. Why is Kivrin going to be able to go to the drop place, but what happens that she does not get there?

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

8. What does Kivrin do to ensure she can find her pick up spot again and what is her first entry in her Doomsday Book?

9. What does Badri believe and how does Dunworthy calm Badri's fears?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

There are some interesting parallels between the action in 2054 and that going on with Kivrin in 1348. Two most obvious that come to mind are they are both suffering an epidemic and bell ringers figure prominently in both times. Discuss the following:

1. Trace, compare and analyze throughout Doomsday Book the similarities between what is happening in 2054 and 1348.

2. Why do you think Willis sets up this mirror-like plot?

3. Do you think it is an effective literary strategy? Why or why not?

4. What similar themes are evident in each time frame?

Essay Topic 2

Dunworthy's mind is constantly on Kivrin, and he continues to reassure himself that she's capable of handling whatever situation arises. He recalls his own test trip through the net to a period just thirty years in the past from that time. There'd been a young man there who pulled offered directions to reach the destination, which he'd got to with time to spare. Dunworthy tells himself that there are young men with a map and a piece of advice in every time period. Discuss the following:

1. Do you think based upon Dunworthy's own first time travel experience which is only 30 years in the past, that Dunworthy is logical in thinking that there will be someone in 1348 to help Kivrin get to where she needs to be?

2. If one assumes that Gawyn is Kivrin's "young man," analyze how helpful he in helping Kivrin find her pick up site. Cite specific examples.

3. Is Dunworthy correct in his reasoning about Kivrin? Why or why not?

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?

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