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. In the italicized section of Chapter 4, who is coming to visit the girl in two weeks?

2. In the italicized section of Chapter 1, what mathematical term does the Kid accuse the girl of calling him?

3. In the italicized section of Chapter 1, who does the girl say she can smell outside the door?

4. In the non-italicized section of Chapter 1, what is Bobby's job?

5. In the non-italicized section of Chapter 4, what does Bobby's sister say is buried in their paternal grandmother's house?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Bobby find in his paternal grandmother's basement after her funeral?

2. What does Bobby do with what he finds in his grandmother's basement?

3. What does Debussy go home to tell her mother about?

4. How does the fire start in Bianca's apartment?

5. Who is the bathless one and what does he do?

6. How does the Kid talk? What is the reader's impression of the Kid from the ways he talks and the language that he uses.

7. Before the girl ends her life in the Wisconsin woods, who comes to see her a final time in her room in Chicago?

8. What is the job that Bobby and Red go on in Port Sulphur?

9. Where does Bobby move in after taking all his belongings out of his apartment?

10. At the beginning of Chapter 4, what appears in the night at the girl's window that makes her whisper Bobby's name?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What do you think of Kline as a character? How is Kline a foil for John Sheddan? What aspect of the author does Kline represent?

Essay Topic 2

Why does the author include a lengthy conversation about who killed John F. Kennedy? What is your experience of reading this section? How is this lengthy conversation a different experience than the one about math and physics? What are you able to grasp from a careful reading of this conversation? How does this conversation connect to the idea of reality compared to the perception of reality? Or the idea that perception shapes reality?

Essay Topic 3

What does this book say about beauty? What does beauty represent in this book? How is beauty connected to reality? How is beauty connected to the deep heart of number which may only exist as unreality or subconscious? How are math and physics related to beauty? Can beauty be detrimental to those who are taken in by it? How so?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 748 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample