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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 was John's relationship with his father like?

2. What does John do after being discharged from the military?

3. Why is it impossible for John and Kathy to do the things they dream about doing?

4. What did John's campaign manager call John's opponent's tactics?

5. What is John's hypothesis in Chapter 9 "Hypothesis"?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the problem with the hypothesis in Chapter 14?

2. What is Claude Rasmussen's opinion about what happened?

3. When did the Wades discover that the election was lost?

4. What limits are imposed on the omniscience of the narrator?

5. Describe the effect of reading In the Lake of the Woods.

6. What is the narrator's hypothesis in Chapter 14?

7. What did John tell himself about what he did to Weatherby?

8. What additional information do we get about the night of the boiling plants?

9. How does the narrator describe Kathy's feelings in the hypothesis in Chapter 9?

10. What do we hear about Weatherby that adds to what we heard about earlier?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is Tim O'Brien doing with the form of the novel by refusing to answer the question of Kathy's disappearance? How is 'In the Lake of the Woods' different from the 'typical' novel? What is the benefit of that difference? What are the drawbacks?

Essay Topic 2

Evaluate your own reading of In the Lake of the Woods--did you resist it, or were you compelled by the story? What does your reading tell you about yourself and your interests? Use specific examples from the book to describe yourself as a reader.

Essay Topic 3

To what degree is this book internally consistent? How much does it follow the rules it lays out for its own unfolding?

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