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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. In Chapter 11, Sidney Martin calls in a massive air-strike following the death of which of his men?

2. According to Doc Peret, soldiers need to beware of an excess of what substance?

3. When do the the events of Chapter 2 occur in relation to Chapter 1?

4. Which of the following is an unofficial SOP mentioned in Chapter 4?

5. In Chapter 4, the author indicates that the Squad organizes themselves by all of the following bases except which?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe Lieutenant Corson.

2. What plans does Paul Berlin make for his return home in Chapter 5?

3. How does Sidney Martin aggravate Third Squad in Chapter 25?

4. How does Cacciato toy with the Third Squad in this chapter?

5. What news does Doc Peret deliver to Lieutenant Corson at the beginning of the novel?

6. Describe Paul Berlin's call home in Chapter 24.

7. Why do Stink Harris and Bernie Lynn have a falling out?

8. How does Paul Berlin lose Cacciato in Mandalay?

9. How does Sarkin Aung Wan react to Paul Berlin's description of their mission?

10. Why does Third Squad need to leave Delhi in Chapter 26?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

O'Brien juxtaposes the elegant, surprising and deeply thematic story of Cacciato's flight to Paris with the banal and meaningless true stories of various deaths in Third Squad.

Write an essay about the meaninglessness of battle, focusing on three squad deaths. How do these men die? Is it for a great cause? How does the squad respond to their deaths, and what lessons are learned from their passing?

Part 1) Bernie Lynn and Frenchie Tucker

Part 2) Buff

Part 3) Sidney Martin

Essay Topic 2

There are two Paul Berlins in Going After Cacciato: the weak-willed bad soldier of the real chapters, and the one that presses onward and gets the girl in the Cacciato story. Write an essay comparing these two. How does the protagonist of the novel reinvent himself in half the chapters? How does this reinvention help him deal with his desperate shortcomings in the other half of the novel? TO what extent is the second Paul Berlin a defense for the first?

Essay Topic 3

The character of Cacciato in the novel exists on two different planes: the Cacciato that exists, and the the Cacciato that exists in Paul Berlin's mind.

Write an essay about Cacciato as he appears in three different points in the novel. It this appearance real or invented? What is Cacciato doing, and how does this further the story? Does Cacciato seem to have any major objective?

Part 1) Cacciato in Delhi

Part 2) Cacciato outside the prison cell in Tehran

Part 3) Cacciato in the World's Greatest Lake Country

(see the answer keys)

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