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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. Where does Isaac meet his wife?

2. Where is Isaac sent to set up a weather station in Texas?

3. What does Moore ban from Cuba?

4. What is the name of the steamship in the gulf on the day of the Hurricane?

5. For what will the summer of 1900 be remembered?

Short Essay Questions

1. What did the crew of Captain William Seymour's ship experience in the eye of a storm in 1837?

2. What does Isaac compare the feeling to that he has on the night before the hurricane?

3. What happens to the weather in Galveston two days before the storm?

4. Why does Isaac believe that no storm could harm Galveston?

5. What is the purpose of the eighteen-page letter that William Stockman sends to Col. Dunwoody?

6. Why does hail become an obsession of Isaac's?

7. How is Isaac a reflection of the country at this time?

8. How did Isaac meet his wife?

9. What kind of man does the narrator describe Isaac to be?

10. What does Isaac observe when he goes to the beach the morning of the storm?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What elements of human nature are captured in the "Spectacle" potion of the book? How is this shown to be intertwined with the ferocious beauty in nature?

Essay Topic 2

How does Erik Larson present a more nuanced look at the Galveston hurricane than the one that is contained in the National Archives? What is the critical difference between the two?

Essay Topic 3

How is the history of weather intertwined with Isaac's history? Where and how do they tragically intersect with the future of Galveston?

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