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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 1: "Nathaniel Recalls the Miracle" through "Home.".

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Isaac do for a living?
(a) He is a rabbi.
(b) He repairs cars.
(c) He makes vacuum cleaners.
(d) He owns a deli.

2. What does Nathaniel suggest that people might be desperate enough to burn in the wake of a global computer failure?
(a) Their old issues of the New York Review.
(b) Their children's elementary school artwork.
(c) Stacks of money.
(d) Their designer clothing and shoes.

3. What ridiculous detail does Nathaniel give in his description of the last months of 1999?
(a) Cults announcing that aliens would come to Earth at midnight on New Year's Eve.
(b) Celebrity clairvoyants making wild predictions in the tabloids.
(c) Preppers sealing their families into shelters underground.
(d) Businesses desperately trying to teach their staffs how to do math without computerized cash registers.

4. Where did Nathaniel live before he moved to New York?
(a) The Midwest.
(b) The Southwest.
(c) California.
(d) Minnesota.

5. What does Nathaniel say history teaches us?
(a) Great people rise to prominence regardless of their circumstances.
(b) There are too many variables for humans to be effective at thinking ahead.
(c) If we do not study the past, we will inevitably repeat unhelpful patterns.
(d) Systems and institutions favor the powerful by their very nature.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why is Lyle sad all of the time?

2. What is Russell's business relationship to Amity?

3. What made tears come into Nathaniel's eyes the first time he saw Matsumoto's loft?

4. Of all of the things that Nathaniel can see from Matsumoto's loft, which is most important to him?

5. How are Nathaniel and Lucien related?

(see the answer key)

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