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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 do Diane and Simon live?

2. In what sort of membrane is the earth wrapped?

3. What has disappeared from his mother's boxes?

4. What is one of Perihelion's projects?

5. Who calls Tyler in March?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Ina tell En to do and why?

2. What disease does Tyler say Jason has and what are the implications?

3. How does Tyler seem to continue in his mother's "footsteps"?

4. What might be a possible reason that the end of the story is given at the beginning of the novel?

5. What movement does Diane belong to and how is that movement characterized? How is the behavior of the movement ironic?

6. Why did the NK religion end?

7. How does Tyler feel and what does he do?

8. What is the definition of ecopoiesis?

9. Why is the one Russian cosmonaut that makes it back to Earth alive after Spin considered crazy?

10. Describe the overall approach of the author to the plot.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

When Spin first appears, the Chinese decide to "nuke" the structures at the two poles which seem to hold the membrane in place. Discuss the following:

Often, when something is not understood, it is attacked. There are other examples of this throughout Spin. Give some examples and analyze those examples to explain why you think the people behave as they do in Spin.

Enumerate and analyze examples of how the principle of attacking that which we do not understand happens in the "real" world.

Create a different model for dealing with that which is new and alien to a culture or one's individual way of life. Show how you might use your plan in specific instances in the book and/or "real" life.

Essay Topic 2

Tyler is writing a record of his past, which could be called a journal, memoir or autobiography. Discuss the following:

What is a journal? Is it the same as a memoir or autobiography? Why or why not.

What is gained by framing this story in the format of a memoir? What is lost by doing so?

Although Spin is a work of fiction, the author would have the readers "suspend their disbelief" and view it as an actual memoir describing actual events. If the reader were to assume the events described in Tyler's writings were actually true, how do you think the point of view of the narrator would bias the account?

Essay Topic 3

Once some scientists begin to understand the properties of Spin, it is evident that time flows differently inside versus outside of the Spin membrane. Discuss the following:

Compare the properties of time between the inside and outside of Spin.

From the perspective of time, what are the advantages of living inside Spin? The disadvantages?

From the perspective of time, what are the advantages of living outside Spin? The disadvantages.

What do you think it says about the nature of time in that it seems to flow differently inside of Spin versus on the outside?

(see the answer keys)

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