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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 does Heat do when making his incomplete, initial report on the Greenwich Park explosion to the assistant commissioner and he is pressured to open up?

2. What is the professor's master skill?

3. The Secret Agent is a novel centered on the attempt in 1894 to destroy what?

4. Whom does Mr. Vladimir propose Mr. Verloc enlist in order to accomplish Vladimir's bomb plot?

5. Which nation is Mr. Vladimir an agent for?

Short Essay Questions

1. How is Mr. Verloc's business establishment described?

2. How is Mrs. Verloc's younger sibling's spare time occupied and where?

3. Toward the end of Chapter 5, Chief Inspector Heat mentions Michaelis's name, which arouses the interest of the assistant commissioner. What reason revealed in Chapter 6 causes him to become concerned?

4. What is Ossipon's view of Mrs. Verloc's sibling?

5. How is the appearance of Winnie Verloc's mother described?

6. Provide a description of where Ossipon runs into the professor in Chapter 4.

7. What problems are faced by Winnie Verloc's lone, younger sibling?

8. Describe what act done by Chief Inspector Heat is detailed and defined as not particularly wise?

9. How is the individual whom the professor encounters in the alley at the beginning of Chapter 5 described?

10. Who is Ossipon?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Honesty, or lack of it, is a trait that is touched upon repeatedly by Conrad in this work. Some lacked virtually any at all. Others' levels of honesty were determined by what they were seeking. Examine the trait of honesty in the characters in this tale and what governed it.

Essay Topic 2

Toodles, the secretary of state's private secretary, only appears in two chapters. He is initially introduced in Chapter 7, when the assistant commissioner first reports to the secretary of state, and again in Chapter 10, when the assistant commissioner returns unexpectedly early to make his report to the secretary of state. Examine how the author uses this new character, Toodles, and both encounters he has with the assistant commissioner in relaying his tale.

Essay Topic 3

In Chapters 9-13, Conrad introduces into the plot numerous ironic twists of fate involving the Verlocs and Ossipon. Please describe these twists and the irony involved. Examine how Conrad uses any other ironies within his tale.

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