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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. Which degree does the interlocutor report holding?

2. With which of the following does II end?

3. How many fire extinguishers is Los Alamos reported to have?

4. In what year is the protagonist admitted to Stella Maris?

5. How long after the protagonist’s mother died did her father die?

Short Essay Questions

1. What attitude toward war does the protagonist report?

2. Why does the protagonist note having reacted badly to her childhood ophthalmologist?

3. What does the protagonist cite as the incident inciting her seeking admission at Stella Maris?

4. How does the protagonist explain the decision to commit herself, rather than to be committed?

5. How does the protagonist argue that the Stanford-Binet test is racist?

6. Why was the protagonist’s father away from home when she was born?

7. What compelled the protagonist’s family to move to Wartburg?

8. How does the protagonist know that her fellow inpatients know she does not belong among them?

9. In what capacity is the protagonist initially assumed to work at IHES?

10. What attitude does the protagonist report her father had toward the use of atomic weapons in World War II?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Section divisions, their titles, and chapter numbering / division schema are all components of paratext. That is, they are not part of the text but are associated with it closely and affect its meaning. What significance, if any, accrues to the chapter-numbering scheme at work in Stella Maris? If there is significance, how does that significance manifest? If there is not, what in the novel supports the paratextual divisions that are in place?

Essay Topic 2

To what genre other than psychological fiction might Stella Maris be considered to belong? What in the text supports that identification? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

The protagonist remarks that “intelligence is numbers. It’s not words. Words are things we’ve made up. Mathematics is not” (19). Does the novel bear out her remarks? How or how not?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 659 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample