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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 the narrator say he has done, when he deletes Andrew Martin’s file describing his solution to the Riemann Hypothesis?

2. What does the narrator say human news is about?

3. How does Gulliver answer when the narrator asks what he was doing at the train tracks?

4. What does the narrator say gives him the closest approximation of space?

5. What is the narrator’s favorite primer number?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who does the narrator meet in the cafeteria in the jail?

2. How does the narrator define beauty for humans?

3. What does the narrator tell Newton?

4. How does the narrator characterize his relationship with his hosts, now that he is getting accustomed to Andrew Martin’s life?

5. What is the narrator’s rhetorical stance in The Humans?

6. How does the narrator characterize his relationship with human music?

7. What is the importance of prime numbers for the narrator?

8. How does the narrator ultimately get himself out of prison?

9. What happens in the narrator’s interview with Andrew Martin’s wife Isobel?

10. How does the narrator explain the Riemann Hypothesis, and what does he say Andrew Martin discovered about it?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an evaluative review of The Humans. What is this book’s place in our culture? Who will find this book most useful? What are its uses? What are its limitations?

Essay Topic 2

Where is the climax of this book? Are there different climaxes? What questions does each climax resolve? What questions does each climax leave unanswered?

Essay Topic 3

Matt Haig seems to delight in describing people as aliens, even in allowing his narrator to all but confess that he is an alien. What is the effect of this language in the novel, and what does this technique show us about regular people and daily life?

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