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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 helps Ben understand his nightmares?

2. Why can't Ben's father retire when he is of age?

3. What is Ben's favorite poet?

4. What can lightning to to clothing?

5. What does Ben say the quest to recover someone's psyche is?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Michaela say about her parents and the pioneer museum?

2. How does Jakob relate a theory by Einstein to the Holocaust?

3. How does Ben compare Petra's skin and lightning imprints?

4. How does Jakob "win" Naomi's heart?

5. How are Jakob's initial days in Greece?

6. How are Ben's parents described?

7. What does Ben say about lightning?

8. How does being in Jakob's house affect Ben?

9. Describe Jakob's first meeting with Michaela.

10. How does Ben's relationship with Petra evolve?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Many novels, and perhaps a majority, of novels ends on a happy note. Discuss the following:

1. Why do you think many (most?) people want what they perceive as a happy or good ending to a novel? Explain your opinion. Do you? Why or why not?

2. What are three reasons to read fiction? Discuss each one in light of "Fugitive Pieces" and whether or not it fulfills all three, two or one of the reasons you mention. Give examples as to why "Fugitive Pieces" is or is not successful in fulfilling the reasons you discuss.

3. Do you think reading solely for entertainment is as good a reason to read as any other? Why or why not? Can any work of fiction or non-fiction, no matter how poorly written, enlighten, teach, stimulate thought? Why or why not?

Essay Topic 2

History and memory share time and space and every moment is really two moments. Examples are how the Nazis and the Lublin scholars view the destruction of holy books, how Nazis and mothers in Lódz react to the soldiers "catching" infants on their bayonets, and how a woman in Birkenau carries a photograph of her husband and daughter under her tongue in order not to be separated from them. Jakob cannot resist reading the horrors of history because he needs to know where Bella actually dies.

1. Explain your ideas as to why history and memory might be two different moments. Use examples from your own life and "Fugitive Pieces" to support your answer.

2. Explain the type of internal change must occur in a soldier in order for a decent or ordinary person to become the type of individual who would toss an infant on his bayonet. Include what people in society today might learn from such a transformation. Use examples from your own life and the text to support your answer.

3. Explain, in depth, how Jakob reading of the Holocaust horrors is related to Jakob not knowing what happened to his sister. Use examples from your own life and "Fugitive Pieces" to support your answer.

Essay Topic 3

Jakob emphasizes that he does not see the horrors that visit European Jewry during World War II while he is living in Greece. He endures hardships on Zakynthos and lives in constant fear of the door being bashed in, as had happened in his home in Poland. All of Zakynthos's Jews are saved from the Nazis through the courage of the Christian mayor and archbishop. By comparison, most of the Jews on nearby Corfu perish by drowning or in concentration camps.

1. Discuss what affect the constant fear with which Jakob lives would have on a young boy. Use examples from your own life and "Fugitive Pieces" to support your answer.

2. Discuss reasons you think some people like the mayor and Bishop tried to help the Jewish people and others did not. Use examples from your own life and "Fugitive Pieces" to support your answer.

3. Discuss, in depth, the concept of courage as it relates to the mayor and the archbishop. Use examples from your own life and "Fugitive Pieces" to support your answer.

(see the answer keys)

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