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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. For Potashnikov, how long did his breakfast sustain his work? ("Carpenters.")

2. What are the bathhouse sessions referred to in "In the Bathhouse"?

3. What did the narrator say that he refused to listen to? ("Sententious.")

4. Who did Gorbunov kill in "Major Pugachov's Last Battle"?

5. What did the narrator say "materialized out of nowhere"? ("Sententious.")

Short Essay Questions

1. What did Savelev do after finding Ivanovich hung himself?

2. Why was the Siberian dwarf cedar called a "weatherman" by the narrator?

3. Why were camp officials perplexed by the convicts avoidance of the bathhouse?

4. Why did the convicts that had been in the camps take their bread back to their barracks? ("Major Pugachov's Last Battle")

5. Why did Merzlakov fake a back injury in "Shock Therapy"?

6. What hypothesis was tested in the story "Quiet"?

7. What did the extra food give the sectarian the energy to do in "Quiet"?

8. What notations did the guards, described in "Prosthetic Appliances", use to show that a convict would not receive hot food and/or bread?

9. What question did the new arrivals ask of the old convicts in "Major Pugachov's Last Battle"?

10. What prosthetics were collected by the guards in "Prosthetic Appliances"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What impact does the fact that the text is written in first-person have on you as a reader? Why is a first-person narration important in these types of histories? What would be lost if the stories were complied as third-person narratives?

Essay Topic 2

Based upon the text, what three things do you think that the forced-laborers in Kolyma needed to survive? Find three different needs and explain why they were necessary for survival in Kolyma.

Essay Topic 3

Many time throughout the collection of stories, Shalamov detailed the loss of human emotions. What human emotions were laborers in Kolyma able to keep? What human emotions did the men tend to lose forever? Why was this as it was?

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