View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does it appear that Jason has?

2. Who is chosen because of his skills and wide cultural knowledge.

3. What is ecopoiesis?

4. Where does E.D. spend most of his time?

5. How does the Martian ambassador escape the Mars Spin?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is known about Spin that would probably cause a general panic in the population of Earth were it to become common knowledge? Is it moral of those "in the know" to keep this information from the general population?

2. Why does Tyler quickly stop reading the letters from his father to his mother and what do you think is the implication of it?

3. Where does the cab take Tyler and Diane and who do they meet?

4. Why do you think most of the Lawtons converge on Washington, D.C. to be witho Belinda, who has suffered a severe stroke and is not expected to live?

5. How does the general population respond to Spin?

6. What is a consequence of the time difference inside and outside of Spin?

7. What is one theme that first appears in this chapter?

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

9. What is the implication of a world where time moves much more slowly compared to the rest of the Universe?

10. Why do all the rockets sent to Mars need to reach the membrane simultaneously?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

The term "teraforming" is quite common in the genre of science fiction, including Spin. Discuss the following:

What is a general definition for teraforming as found in your research? Does the definition fit the way teraforming is used in Spin?

How does teraforming appear in Spin? Explain giving examples.

Does the concept of teraforming seem far fetched in "real" life? Why or why not?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of teraforming?

Is there any possibility that Earth was actually teraformed by advanced beings? Why or why not?

Essay Topic 3

Science fiction, though fiction, has a marvelous way of sometimes heralding the future. Much of what was written as "science fiction" in the 1940s and 1950s is now reality. Discuss the following:

What in Spin do you think could become a reality in the future? Why?

Do you think human beings create a future reality by envisioning it in the present? Why or why not?

If humans do indeed create reality in the future by envisioning it in the present, what sort of responsibility does that suggest for present "creators"? Explain.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,106 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample