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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. What shape are professional men?

2. What can inhabitants of Flatland NOT do?

3. What shapes are included in the Priestly order?

4. Where are readers assumed to live?

5. What is the third form of recognition in Flatland?

Short Essay Questions

1. Explain how sight recognition is used in upper classes, and why such a method cannot be used for the lower class.

2. In Chapter 1, what does A. Square compare sight in Flatland to in the three dimensional world, Spaceland, and what is the comparison?

3. What were the events surrounding the spread of desire to color Flatland, and how long did almost complete colorization take?

4. Explain the shape of workmen and soldiers, women, the middle class, the professionals, and noblemen, or priests.

5. What is Hoffman's belief about the relatability of the characters in the novel?

6. How does A. Square explain the lack of ability to discern changes in retraction or projection in Chapter 1?

7. What was the Universal Color Bill, and why did women support it?

8. What example does A. Square use to show his reasoning behind the need for regularity of shape?

9. How is the temper of women useful in ridding society of the most brutal of the Isosceles class?

10. Summarize A. Square's explanation of Flatland.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In Chapter 9, Abbott discusses the role of women in the near-passage of the Universal Color Bill. Discuss why women wanted the bill to pass, and why they would stand to benefit. Think of an event in history that women helped to shape, and compare the gains of the women in Flatland to the women in your example. Do the women stand to gain in the same ways? Do they differ? How?

Essay Topic 2

Compare and contrast the King of Pointland, the King of Lineland, A. Square, and the Sphere, including their general characteristics as well as their overall personalities. What are their similarities? What are their differences?

Essay Topic 3

In Flatland, there are several Laws of Nature discussed that serve to keep the Circles in power. Choose one of these laws, and explain it in depth. Does such a law of nature truly exist in the world? What do you believe Abbott was trying to say by introducing this law?

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