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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does the narrator say, in Chapter 6, is the problem with his culture’s story?
(a) The narrator says that conquering the earth has provided freedoms that are worth the earth’s destruction.
(b) The narrator says that conquering the earth has meant destroying it
(c) The narrator says that technology has sped up the destruction of the earth so much that no one can stop it
(d) The narrator says that there has been a strong conservation movement, opposing industrial progress

2. When does Ishmael say he was truly born?
(a) When he realized that he had a name
(b) When he realized that he was a gorilla
(c) When he learned to read
(d) When he realized that his name was not his

3. What does Ishmael tell the narrator to do, when the narrator cannot say what man’s destiny is in Chapter 5?
(a) Think metaphorically
(b) Think mythologically
(c) Think historically
(d) Think emotionally

4. How long ago did the Leavers’ story come into existence?
(a) 2-3 million years
(b) 200 years ago
(c) 2-3 thousand years
(d) 300 years ago

5. What does Ishmael say, in Chapter 2, about the path he will take the narrator on?
(a) He should pay careful attention to the route they will take
(b) He need not remember the route
(c) Every step will correspond with a mystical experience
(d) There is no going back once you start

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the literary term that describes the narrator’s directly addressing the reader?

2. How does the narrator characterize the 1960s?

3. What does Ishmael elicit from the narrator in Chapter 4 regarding his creation myth?

4. What does Ishmael say the narrator will be the result of learning what he is teaching?

5. How does Ishmael characterize the people who recognized the mythology of Hitler’s rule, but went along with it anyway?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Ishmael describe the difference between living in Africa and living in a zoo?

2. What does Ishmael say will be the result, once the narrator learns to hear Mother Culture’s voice?

3. How does the narrator react when Ishmael finally gets him to see that his culture’s narrative is just a myth—and what is the significance of the narrator’s response?

4. What does Ishmael say the Takers’ relationship to the Community of Life is?

5. Why does Ishmael provide the narrator with a tape recorder?

6. How do Ishmael and the narrator see the Takers as similar to early aeronauts?

7. What is the rival creation story Ishmael tells the narrator?

8. Why does Walter Sokolow adopt Ishmael?

9. What does the narrator’s culture’s reliance on prophets indicate to Ishmael?

10. What are the definitions Ishmael lays out for the narrator?

(see the answer keys)

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