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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. Who does Jane say was the first person to get her see the knowledge she might have been hiding from herself?

2. Where were Jonathan and his first wife married?

3. What was the first instance Jane recalled of watching herself ignore her own knowledge?

4. What does Ziegler hear, once he can understand this language?

5. Who wrote the story about Ziegler?

Short Essay Questions

1. What importance did Jonathan’s therapist attach to his interest in the Ziegler story?

2. What was the memory Sima helped Jane uncover?

3. What was it that the Foundation community found humorous when Jonathan screened the film he made of the Ziegler story?

4. How does Jane say Sima was different from the other therapists at the Foundation?

5. What is the spread and why is it controversial?

6. What is Adam’s relationship with Dr. Erwood?

7. What emotions does Jane associate with having neglected to order airline tickets for a family trip?

8. What are the kinds of things Darren finds and puts in his pockets and gauges his identity by?

9. What was Darren’s job, and how did he lose it?

10. What did Jonathan find captivating about the Duccio Madonna and Child painting in the Met?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In what way is The Topeka School a bildungsroman (or kunstlerroman)? What are the stages of maturation it narrates? How does the novel draw a distinction between developmental stages, and how does it move characters from one stage to another?

Essay Topic 2

How are gender role differences represented in The Topeka School? How are men and women represented, and how do the characters understand the differences between the men’s work and women’s work? How does the author shed light on these terms, or throw them into question?

Essay Topic 3

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

(see the answer keys)

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