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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the name of Lucien's assistant?
(a) Advika.
(b) Rashana.
(c) Devahuti.
(d) Sharmila.

2. What is Russell's business relationship to Amity?
(a) He is an employee of her P.R. firm.
(b) He is her lawyer.
(c) He is her book agent.
(d) He works with her at the stock exchange.

3. What is Nathaniel's job in the narrative present?
(a) He works as a building manager for Matsumoto.
(b) He works in the New York subway's architecture department.
(c) He works on the floor of the New York Stock exchange.
(d) He is a bartender at a bar near Matsumoto's loft.

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

5. Where did Nathaniel meet Madison, Amity, and Lyle?
(a) In college.
(b) At his first job in New York.
(c) At a bar near Matsumoto's loft.
(d) In high school.

6. Which character works for Itami Systems?
(a) Matsumoto.
(b) Lyle.
(c) Madison.
(d) Lucien.

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

8. From the story's context, when must Charlie have died?
(a) Before the year 2000.
(b) In the year 2003.
(c) Shortly after the September 11th attack.
(d) In the year 2000.

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

10. What does Nathaniel say that ceremonial occasions remind us about?
(a) That we should love one another.
(b) That life is unpredictable.
(c) That time only moves in one direction.
(d) That ideas are bigger than any one person.

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

12. After Charlie became ill, what did Lucien feel was happening to the world?
(a) It was melting away into nothing.
(b) It was all turning into paper.
(c) It was burning down around him.
(d) It was shattering like broken glass.

13. Why is Lyle sad all of the time?
(a) He is heavily in debt.
(b) He and his boyfriend have broken up.
(c) His boyfriend has moved to London.
(d) He is homesick and hates New York.

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

15. What do Rose and Isaac ask Lucien to do when he calls Nathaniel after Nathaniel arrives in New York?
(a) Not tell Nathaniel that they asked Lucien to call.
(b) Tell Nathaniel to go back home.
(c) Get Nathaniel a job.
(d) Find Nathaniel a place to live.

Short Answer Questions

1. How are Nathaniel and Lucien related?

2. When Lucien is in the gallery imagining that he is with Charlie, what does he promise her?

3. Besides their minimal rent, what task are Nathaniel and his roommates performing in exchange for a place to live?

4. Which of the possible consequences of a global computer failure that Nathaniel mentions could be considered foreshadowing?

5. To what does Nathaniel compare the sight of Manhattan from Matsumoto's loft?

(see the answer keys)

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