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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. In the italicized section of Chapter 2, at what age does the girl say that her hallucinations started?

2. In the italicized section of Chapter 4, what does the girl say that photons are not?

3. In the Italicized section of Chapter 3, who is the girl's religion teacher?

4. In the non-italicized section of Chapter 3, what is Bobby's sister's name?

5. In the non-italicized section of Chapter 3, who does Janice say that Bobby should ask out on a date?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. In Chapter 2, What does the Kid present to the girl?

3. After talking to Oiler about Vietnam, what do the guys in suits want to know from Bobby about the downed plane?

4. What does Debussy say that she wants in regard to gender?

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

6. What is Oiler going to do on his dive job in Venezuela?

7. How does the Kid feel about almost all the acts that he brings up? How does he generally end them that gives a clue as to how he feels?

8. What happens to Bobby that ends his time racing cars?

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

10. What are Bobby and Oiler doing off the coast of Mississippi as the non-italicized section of Chapter 1 opens?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

Alicia talks about the deep heart of number and the separation between the source of a mathematical conjecture's creation and the value of a mathematical conjecture once it is written down. She says that if left unwritten, a mathematical conjecture may provide some insight into the deep core of reality. What is the paradox of something separate from reality being able to explain reality? How is that connected to conscious and the subconscious? Between Alicia who tries to make sense and the Kid who tries to make unsense?

Essay Topic 3

What is the structure of each chapter? Why does the author structure the story in the way that he does? How does this structure support the overall feel of the book?

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