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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. The comment that “Problem-solving was not the scythedom’s strength” (97) offers an example of which of the following?
(a) Litotes.
(b) Chiasmus.
(c) Alliteration.
(d) Hyperbole.

2. How wide a crater would have been left by the trap for Scythes Curie and Anastasia?
(a) 100 feet.
(b) 50 feet.
(c) 200 feet.
(d) 10 feet.

3. Which of the following can cause a permanent death in the novel?
(a) Wind.
(b) Earth.
(c) Water.
(d) FIre.

4. In what city does Anastasia glean Ethan J. Hogan?
(a) Akron.
(b) Columbus.
(c) Cleveland.
(d) Cincinnati.

5. In which of the following cities does Anastasia perform a gleaning as part of the plan to trap her assailants?
(a) Bismarck.
(b) Fargo.
(c) Grand Forks.
(d) Minot.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which of the following is served at the Terranova Thanksgiving meal?

2. The sentence “Death and disfigurement had been replaced by revival and reprimand” (88) offers examples of which of the following?

3. What color robes does Scythe Anastasia wear?

4. What color does Greyson dye his hair as part of taking on the Slayd persona?

5. In what city is the Mortality Memorial?

Short Essay Questions

1. What possibilities for maintaining Earth’s human population count does the Thunderhead foresee, and why are they problems?

2. What reasons does the Thunderhead give for the inefficiencies in the Office of Unsavory Affairs?

3. How does Purity verify Slayd’s identity, and why does she do so?

4. In his expulsion hearing, Greyson works “to seamlessly begin to paint a convincing fiction” (93-94). What is the primary rhetorical appeal he makes in his presentation, and how is it enacted?

5. What reasons does Xenocrates rehearse for visiting his bathhouse more frequently as the year draws to a close?

6. There is a note that Scythe Anastasia “was beginning to hate having to take the obsequious self-driving cars. Funny, but it had never bothered her before her apprenticeship. Citra Terranova had never had a burning desire to learn to drive—but Scythe Anastasia now did. Perhaps it was part of the self-determined nature of being a scythe that made her feel uncomfortable as a passive passenger in a publicar. Or maybe it was the spirit of Scythe Curie rubbing off on her” (38). What rhetorical appeal/s is/are present in the passage?

7. The scythes are noted as having an officer called a Parliamentarian. There is a symbolic component to the presence of such an officer; what is it, and how does it manifest?

8. Rowan notes that “imagination had atrophied.…become vestigial and pointless, like the appendix—which had been removed from the human genome more than a hundred years ago” (15). What does the simile foreshadow will happen within the narrative milieu? How does it do so?

9. What reason does the Thunderhead give for not accepting responsibility for dealing death?

10. Scythe Brahms observes that “no one should see a scythe so indisposed and live” when a couple sees him bestrewn with rotting food and helps him; instead, he gives them immunity from execution and sends them on their way (11-12). How does the passage serve to reinforce his personal authority?

(see the answer keys)

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