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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 is the only reason Grandma comes into Thomas's guest room the first two months that he is there?

2. How does Thomas burn the skin off his hands in Why I'm Not Where You Are?

3. How does Abby Black know William Black?

4. Why can Oskar not speak to A.R. Black at the beginning of A Simple Solution to an Impossible Problem?

5. How long does Thomas later learn the first bombing of Dresden lasted?

Short Essay Questions

1. What decision does Oskar make at the end of Alive and Alone?

2. How does the sixth borough's drift affect a boy and girl in the story?

3. What does does Thomas tell his son about his and and his former wife's location at the beginning Why I'm Not Where You Are?

4. How does Oskar overcome a phobia in Alive and Alone?

5. How does Thomas, Sr. discover he has a son in Why I'm Not where You Are?

6. What is the living arrangement between Grandma and Thomas in Why I'm Not Where You Are?

7. What major item movement happens between the sixth borough and and Manhattan as it drifts off?

8. What does Stephen Hawking say to Oskar in A Simple Solution to an Impossible Problem?

9. What is happening in Dad's fourth message?

10. What is revealed by the long jump at the beginning of The Sixth Borough?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The plot of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is riddled with absent fathers. Write an essay about the prevalence of absent father figures, focusing on the primary father-son relationship in each othe two primary story-lines. What is the reason for each father's absence? How does each father communicate with his estranged son on a daily basis without actually doing so? In summation, discuss what happens when the estranged father figure of one narrative meets the orphaned son of the other. How do they interact?

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay about the relationship between Grandma and her sister Anna. Focus primarily on the period immediately before the bombing of Dresden. How is one girl experiencing sexuality at the same time as another is experiencing an innocent curiosity about sexually? How are they both bound to Thomas Schell, Sr. before the bombing happens? To what extent is Anna's death instrumental in bringing Grandma and Thomas together in America?

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay about the role that the past plays in defining the present in the novel. How is every major character in the novel a product of past that they may or may not know? To what extent are Grandma and Thomas Schell, Sr., the keepers of this history? Why do they choose not to explicate this history to the younger generations of the novel? In the end, how does the younger generation, as represented by Oskar, discover the reality of its roots through accidental contact with the older?

(see the answer keys)

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