View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Ishmael say, in Chapter 5, is man’s purpose on the earth?
(a) To fulfill it
(b) To dream it
(c) To rule it
(d) To perfect it

2. When does Ishmael say that human history began?
(a) 30 thousand years ago
(b) 3 million years ago
(c) 300 thousand years ago
(d) 3 thousand years ago

3. What manipulation does the narrator say man had to learn in order to master his environment?
(a) How to manipulate the production of goods
(b) How to manipulate his food supply
(c) How to manipulate trade
(d) How to manipulate his womenfolk

4. How does Ishmael say that men see the ruin of nature, according to the narrator’s culture’s mythology?
(a) As the visitation of god’s judgment
(b) As the plan nature had for mankind
(c) As the result of God’s plan
(d) As the price to be paid for ruling the earth

5. How does Ishmael say the narrator learned the story of ‘how things came to be this way’?
(a) A little at a time
(b) In his earliest experience with his family
(c) Systematically, in school
(d) All at once in church

6. How does Ishmael say Takers regard the world?
(a) As a gift to be cherished
(b) As a garden of provisions
(c) As an animal to be domesticated
(d) As life-support for human beings

7. What does Ishmael say he can offer the narrator in Chapter 3?
(a) A set of practical tools for changing the world
(b) A new perception of the world
(c) Access to mystical experience
(d) A network of people who resist culture

8. Where, in the narrator’s account, does the destruction of the earth get reversed?
(a) As soon as the political parties can come to agreement
(b) In the future, with the children
(c) It never does
(d) As soon as someone discovers how to make money from healing the natural world

9. What does the narrator say he does with the newspaper the first time he reads Ishmael’s ad?
(a) Throws it in the trash
(b) Throws it on the floor
(c) Leaves the paper on a bench
(d) Burns it

10. What does Ishmael say he wants, in Chapter 4, when the narrator finally realizes the truth of what Ishmael has been talking about?
(a) Terror
(b) Astonishment
(c) Gratitude
(d) Humility

11. What does Ishmael say is the premise of the narrator’s creation myth?
(a) That the world is a mystery no one understands
(b) That man is an exile in his consciousness
(c) That man belongs in the midst, not on the top of the community of life
(d) That the world is made for man

12. How does the narrator say, in Chapter 4, that he got himself to see the middle of the story?
(a) By thinking about what a Martian observer would see
(b) By thinking about the moments when he learned the story himself
(c) By thinking about writing it as a treatment for Nova
(d) By thinking about telling it to a child

13. What does Ishmael say, in Chapter 2, about the path he will take the narrator on?
(a) He should pay careful attention to the route they will take
(b) There is no going back once you start
(c) He need not remember the route
(d) Every step will correspond with a mystical experience

14. From whose perspective does Ishmael tell a rival creation story in Chapter 4?
(a) Someone from another planet
(b) An indigenous person in Asia
(c) A jellyfish
(d) A gorilla

15. In Chapter 3, how does Ishmael tell the narrator to think, when he tries to get him to see the myth of his culture?
(a) Imaginatively
(b) Counter intuitively
(c) Like a child
(d) Mythological

Short Answer Questions

1. How long ago did the Takers’ story come into existence?

2. What does Ishmael say the world was created for, in the narrator’s story in Chapter 4?

3. When does the narrator’s creation story begin?

4. What does the narrator say is his first impression of Ishmael?

5. What is the story the narrator tells in Chapter 3?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 688 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample