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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. Whose son bumps into Holston’s knees at the top of the stairs in Chapter 1?
(a) Sharon’s son.
(b) Allison’s son.
(c) Susan’s son.
(d) Paula’s son.

2. What does the narrator say Holston and his wife had “invited into their lives” in Chapter 1?
(a) Superstition.
(b) Corruption.
(c) Revenge.
(d) Religion.

3. What rooms are described in Chapter 1 as being filled with “tangles of pipes, like a vast universe”?
(a) Torture rooms.
(b) Purification rooms.
(c) Airlock chambers.
(d) Reading rooms.

4. How is the staircase that Holston is climbing described in Chapter 1?
(a) Plastic.
(b) Muddy.
(c) Spiral.
(d) Marble.

5. The narrator says in Chapter 2, “There were larger things to consider than the act of” what?
(a) “Caring.”
(b) “Loving.”
(c) "Dying."
(d) “Cleaning.”

Short Answer Questions

1. What is described in the center of each step as the items that “once gave the treads their grip” in Chapter 1?

2. What is the mayor’s name in Chapter 2?

3. How many years is Holston said to have “spent silently waiting for what would never come” in Chapter 1?

4. The narrator describes the sky in Chapter 2 as “the same dull gray of” what?

5. The voices that Holston hears as he ascends the staircase in Chapter 1 are described as what?

Short Essay Questions

1. How is Holston said to relate to his memories of childhood in Chapter 1?

2. What does Allison initially point out to Holston in the beginning of Chapter 3?

3. What theory does Holston reach about the wiped servers in Chapter 3?

4. What exchange takes place between Holston and Deputy Marnes in Chapter 1?

5. What does Holston notice about the view from the holding room in the beginning of Chapter 2?

6. What is an example of the use of literary repetition in Chapter 1? What purpose does this example serve?

7. What does Mayor Jahns say about the holding cell when she first arrives in Chapter 2?

8. What does Holston discover that Mayor Jahns and the others in the silo fear in Chapter 2?

9. What sounds are described in the beginning of Chapter 1? What tone do these sounds set for the narrative?

10. How is the act of “cleaning” defined in the novel?

(see the answer keys)

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