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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 meaning is ascribed to the name Scheherazade?

2. In what year does Rushdie note having first read Portnoy’s Complaint?

3. Which of the following does Rushdie note having written for his son?

4. At which of the following universities did Rushdie study?

5. Which of the following books does Rushdie reference?

Short Essay Questions

1. What, from context, does Rushdie mean by saying “English, I understood, could be chutnified” (91)?

2. What idea about Shakespeare does Rushdie ascribe to Howard Brenton?

3. What answer to the question of difficult reading does Rushdie propose?

4. What lessons does Rushdie find in the story of Orpheus and Eurydice?

5. What reason for enjoying Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” does Rushdie note?

6. For what reason does Rushdie report Scheherazade pled for her life to be spared by her husband?

7. What effect does Rushdie note of Romanian orphans having no access to stories?

8. Why does Rushdie assert that visitors to New York City feel they know it when they arrive there?

9. What was Rushdie’s last assignment as a student journalist?

10. What does Rushdie note was his first attraction to Thousand Nights and One Night?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Similarly, the lengths of chapters influence reading. What pattern of chapter-length is present in the anthology, if any? What effect does the length of chapters have on the reading? How is the effect achieved?

Essay Topic 2

If the anthology were a work of fiction and nothing else about the work were changed, how reliable would the narrator be? Why?

Essay Topic 3

What does Rushdie gain from disparaging the works of other writers? That is, what effect is created by his doing so, and how does it work to the advantage of the anthology?

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