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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. What does Joe try to use to climb up the rope?
(a) A sticht plate.
(b) A "Friend".
(c) A karabiner.
(d) A Prussik knot.

2. At one of the lowering changeovers, Simon smiles at Joe, and Joe realizes that their partnership...
(a) Is just as effective and had turned from climbing to rescue.
(b) Is accident-prone.
(c) Had been a bad idea.
(d) Has gone from bad to worse.

3. What do the climbers use to help them see at night?
(a) Flashlights.
(b) LCD screens.
(c) Starlight.
(d) Head torches.

4. What part of the body does a gaiter cover?
(a) The head.
(b) The thigh.
(c) The lower leg above the boot.
(d) The elbow.

5. At what altitude does Joe realize that both he and Simon have set a personal altitude record?
(a) 21,000 feet.
(b) 29,000 feet.
(c) 15,000 feet.
(d) 18,000 feet.

Short Answer Questions

1. How far does Simon lower Joe each time before he descends himself?

2. What is verglas?

3. Which practice route does Al Rouse understate as 'a ridge of some difficulty'?

4. What is directly under Joe when he hangs in front of the ice wall?

5. What object does Joe have trouble with in the beginning of the story?

Short Essay Questions

1. What worries Joe and Simon the most about the final part of the route to the summit?

2. While thinking about the possibility of having fallen off the ridge while roped together, Joe talks about what incident witnessed by Simon?

3. Why does Joe consider standing on the summit an unsettling anticlimax?

4. What observation does Joe make about tents in the opening scene of the book?

5. What happens on The Bonatti Pillar on Les Petits Drus in the French Alps?

6. In "Storm at the Summit", how does Joe get a bloody lip and a cracked tooth?

7. Describe the first bivouac site on Siula Grande.

8. Joe says that a 'warm feeling' stays with him while Simon lowers him. What 'warm feeling' is he referring to?

9. What occurs to Joe at the beginning of "On the Edge"?

10. Why does Simon cut the rope?

(see the answer keys)

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