View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What happens to the narrator when he reaches the other bank in the small boat?

2. Who asks the narrator to go to the landowner's estate with him?

3. What disability does Henderson have?

4. How do the villagers react to the narrator's story when he runs into the village after the heat ray?

5. What does the narrator see in the sky as he goes to town on his way back from the inn?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the state of the narrator's relationship with the curate when they stay in Halliford, and why?

2. What weapon do the Martians use when the first cylinder opens, and how does this change the story?

3. What happens in the ruined house that makes the narrator hide in the basement?

4. How do people in Woking initially react to news of the Martian attack?

5. What does the narrator find when he leaves the ruined house? What does this indicate?

6. How does the narrator attempt to reassure himself and his wife when he returns home after the first heat-ray?

7. When the curate and the narrator are first trapped in the ruined house, how does their conflict begin to intensify?

8. Why might the narrator have included the story about his brother?

9. What kind of newspaper coverage does the cylinder receive on the second day? What might this predict?

10. How do people feel about the Martians when they first see them? When and why does this change?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What advantages do the Martians have over the humans, and vice versa?

Essay Topic 2

How and why do people use a crisis for personal gain in War of the Worlds?

Essay Topic 3

Based on the character of the curate, what do you think H.G. Wells is trying to say about religion in this novel?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 867 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample