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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. How much money does the narrator borrow from the bank in Chapter LV?

2. How many miles does the narrator travel to the islands of Mono Lake?

3. What bites the narrator during his stay in Honolulu?

4. What is the total amount of time that the narrator stays in Hawaii?

5. What is the Wide West?

Short Essay Questions

1. What are the two different reasons that both the narrator and Higbie abandon their blind lead claim, and what is the result?

2. What causes the narrator to travel to San Francisco?

3. What is the new career choice the narrator makes towards the end of the book, and how does it begin?

4. What is the process of mining silver and shipping it to California in 1865?

5. Who is Higbie, and why is he valuable for the narrator's search of Mr. Whiteman?

6. How long does the narrator stay in Hawaii, and in what way does the author's literary tone change in these chapters?

7. How does the narrator describe Mono Lake?

8. Why is the narrator's work never published in The Weekly Occidental?

9. What is on the islands in the center of Mono Lake?

10. How does the narrator describe San Francisco?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Compare and contrast the narrator's trip on the stage coach to the trip made by a reporter after the railroad is completed. Also, include the point the author is making with the comparison and why he chooses to contrast his trip with a future one.

Essay Topic 2

Mr. Whiteman is the elusive subject of another plan to strike it rich by the narrator.

1) Describe the background of Mr. Whiteman and why it is believed that he can lead people to a gold mine.

2) Describe Mono Lake and the narrator's experiences there. Include what the lake represents in the theme of the narrator's quest for fortune.

3) Explain how the author successfully introduces events surrounding a character that never appears.

Essay Topic 3

Describe the contrast between Carson City and Lake Tahoe. What are the narrator's experiences in both places? Why does he choose to spend time in Lake Tahoe, and what are some of the ways it provides what the city cannot? How does Twain's description of Lake Tahoe illustrate his writing talent? Which events in both Lake Tahoe and Carson City display the main theme of the narrator's trip, and why?

(see the answer keys)

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