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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 scenario does Ishmael describe in Chapter 7, which horrifies the narrator?
(a) The meetings of the gods, where the gods do nothing but bicker
(b) A city where every plant and tree is ordered
(c) A city where the neighbors eat each other
(d) A jungle where the animals have committee meetings

2. What does Ishmael say keeps nature in balance?
(a) The relationship between feeders and predators
(b) The process of natural selection
(c) The migration of birds and whales
(d) The cycle of the seasons

3. When does Ishmael say the Take population will contract?
(a) When it runs out of natural resources
(b) When the population bomb explodes
(c) When the earth rebels
(d) When the populace outstrips its food supply

4. How does Ishmael characterize the Takers’ response to the law he and the narrator discuss in Chapter 8?
(a) They argued that it was against their constitution
(b) They claimed that it did not apply to them
(c) They found that they could use it to their unfair advantage
(d) They found that they could get away with breaking it indefinitely

5. What assumption does Ishmael say the Takers must have made about the world in order to follow the laws they follow?
(a) That there is something fundamentally wrong with humankind
(b) That time was running out for the world unless they could fix it
(c) That man can only return to nature through culture
(d) That men are demi-gods

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Ishmael say people think about prehistory, before the agricultural revolution?

2. For whose benefit does Ishmael say the Takers accumulate and preserve knowledge?

3. What knowledge does Ishmael say the gods have that allows them to rule the world?

4. What does the narrator say is new about Ishmael’s expression at the beginning of Chapter 7?

5. After the narrator describes his law, how does Ishmael reword it?

Short Essay Questions

1. What surprising behavior does Ishmael describe for the narrator in an imaginary hospitable city?

2. How does Ishmael say the Takers explain their divergence from the peace-keeping law that has kept nature harmonious for three million years?

3. What does the narrator say is the consequence of the Takers’ culture?

4. What argument does the narrator offer for why the Takers’ culture is superior to the Leavers’?

5. How does Ishmael characterize the experiment that is modern civilization?

6. What are the three things that Takers do that nothing else in nature does?

7. What objection does Ishmael make to the narrator’s questions at the beginning of Chapter 11?

8. How does Ishmael say the Takers are fulfilling the story in which creation came to an end with them?

9. Describe the narrator’s negotiations with Art Owens.

10. How do Ishmael and the narrator say that culture changed when the agricultural revolution took place?

(see the answer keys)

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