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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 is thrown at the officers in Chapter 46?

2. What is the name of the experimental herbicide for removing algae from lakes?

3. What is the name of the Museum scientist who disappeared in the Amazon ten years earlier?

4. What building do Waxie and Duffy enter before initiating the drainage sequence?

5. The hut Pendergast observes consists of what building material?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the Navy SEALs involvement tell you about the seriousness of the matter?

2. Do you think Waxie was too hasty in naming Jeffery as the serial killer? What reason might Waxie have for such a hasty conclusion?

3. What starts the riots during the Take Back Our City March? Is this the fault of Mrs. Wisher, the police, or the homeless? Cite examples to support your argument.

4. What does Smithback view that leads him to believe his ambition might have finally taken him too far? Do you think his fear is because he feels his mortality or because he has seen the mortality of others?

5. What do you think the symbols Pendergast discovered, which translate to a description of a Japanese tea room, mean to the creatures?

6. Why do you think the creatures abduct the group determined to destroy them instead of killing them like they have everyone else?

7. Of what is the subway massacre the first definitive indication? What does this mean to the investigation?

8. What does Margo discover in the remains of the laboratory that puts her in a momentary stupor? What does this discovery mean overall?

9. What is Margo's theory about what happened to Whittlesey? Examining her scientific approach outlined in the book, do you see any flaws in her theory? Is there another reasonable explanation?

10. What is a seemingly positive side effect of the reovirus infection? What might this mean to future testing?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The second skeleton is a huge mystery to the people investigating and examining it. They can find no obvious cause for the extensive remodeling of the bone structure and are baffled by its existence. What are some of the theories put forward initially? What happens when the skeleton is finally identified?

Essay Topic 2

Margo briefly explains the importance of ceremony in anthropological terms. The Wrinklers perform a ceremony with their shaman and their drug. What does ceremony mean to a populace? What need does it satisfy in man? Apply those theories to the ceremony performed by the Wrinklers. What is similar? What is different? What seems to be the base purpose for the Wrinklers' ceremony?

Essay Topic 3

Hayward is an interesting character, a woman of strength, confidence and utter self-assurance. Margo is strong, but in different ways with different approaches to problem solving. Compare/contrast Margo and Hayward, particularly their strengths and weaknesses. What does each character contribute to the storyline?

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This section contains 904 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample