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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. Through what agency does the protagonist purchase a violin?

2. With which of the following works does the protagonist engage?

3. What procedure does the protagonist note had been performed on Rosemary Kennedy?

4. What name did the Kid believe Dirac had?

5. What group did Grothendieck lead?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Why does the protagonist consider music an exception to the rules governing other things?

3. What, per the novel, is Gabelsberger?

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

5. What work did the protagonist’s father do after the use of atomic weapons in World War II?

6. What reason is given for Grothendieck leaving the IHES?

7. Why had the protagonist hoped to get into the Coletta facility?

8. How does the protagonist note arriving at the Kid’s height?

9. What vice does the protagonist admit to having?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Which character is the third most important in the text, after the protagonist and the interlocutor? How does the work support such an assertion?

Essay Topic 2

To what other writer’s work in your experience does McCarthy’s seem most similar? What makes the writers similar? What differentiates them? Overall, which do you regard as doing better at the craft of writing, and why?

Essay Topic 3

Overall, what is the most important theme of Stella Maris? What in the text indicates as much? How does it do so?

(see the answer keys)

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