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

Short Answer Questions

1. Which of the following positions does Jan Galton-van Riebeeck hold in BEG?

2. On which of the following floors is Penny’s workplace at PHH?

3. At which of the following hospitals is Mama’s arm treated?

4. Which of the following does the narrator note had adopted Supercargo?

5. At which of the following intersections is the narrator obliged to stand for trial by ordeal?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the narrator identify as “The problem with going to a grocery store when you’re the noncooking partner” (215)?

2. How does the narrator describe his preferred workspace in the wake of Penny’s death?

3. What reasons are given to the narrator for asking him to be BEG’s official spokesperson?

4. How does the narrator report imagining Dr. Nzinga?

5. How does the narrator characterize his relationship with Nigel after having drugged him (261)?

6. How is “the original ADZE” described (218)?

7. What reasons are given for disbelief in ADZE’s complicity in the mall attack?

8. What does the narrator note as the inciting incident for his wanting to have Nigel demelanized?

9. What does the narrator’s grandfather report as the effect when “those problems done piled up on me” (137)?

10. How does the narrator report his father describing “permitting issues” (231)?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The narrator remarks, “I knew my mother well enough to understand that she would object to my plans for Nigel even more vehemently than Penny did” (72). What causes might the narrator have for proceeding despite the certainty of opposition from his wife and mother? What in the novel and in experience suggest as much? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 2

If there is a hero in the novel—a focal “good” character—who is it most likely to be, and why?

Essay Topic 3

Consider the following comment:

What was it about people who were late of the Motherland [Africa]? There was something about the cant of their cheeks and noses that made them instantly recognizable in relief to run-of-the-mill African Americans like myself. I guessed that people like this nurse’s ancestors were history’s victors, the lucky souls who had avoided the Middle Passage and miscegenation. Coffee never diluted by creamer (151).

Is the narrator’s assertion of luckiness accurate? What in the novel and in documented history suggests that it is or is not? How does it do so?

(see the answer keys)

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