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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. How long ago did the Leavers’ story come into existence?
(a) 2-3 million years
(b) 300 years ago
(c) 2-3 thousand years
(d) 200 years ago

2. What role does Ishmael say the Fertile Crescent plays in the narrator’s story?
(a) Legendary birthplace of agriculture
(b) The birthplace of culture
(c) A distraction
(d) Center of the world

3. What event does Ishmael say correlates to the birth of the Takers’ story?
(a) The development of trade routes
(b) The beginning of writing
(c) The discovery of metallurgy
(d) The birth of agriculture

4. What is the narrator’s reaction when he hears the rival creation story Ishmael tells in Chapter 4?
(a) He is furious
(b) He does not understand it
(c) He sees the point immediately
(d) He is amused

5. What does the narrator say is his first impression of the room in Chapter 1?
(a) Anger
(b) Comfort
(c) Emptiness
(d) Wisdom

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Ishmael say that men see the ruin of nature, according to the narrator’s culture’s mythology?

2. What distinction does Ishmael point out between Leaver and Taker cultures?

3. How does Ishmael characterize the people who recognized the mythology of Hitler’s rule, but went along with it anyway?

4. How does the narrator characterize Ishmael’s expression when he gets the narrator to see that the idea that man should rule the earth is a myth?

5. What has the narrator’s coldness become, now that he mentions it to Ishmael a second time, at the end of Chapter 5?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Walter Sokolow adopt Ishmael?

2. What does Ishmael say the Takers’ relationship to the Community of Life is?

3. What is the ‘but’ Ishmael says is part of the narrator’s culture’s myth, and where does the ‘but’ come from?

4. How does Ishmael say Hitler captivated the German people?

5. How does Ishmael characterize the earth before the development of human culture?

6. Describe the narrator’s first encounter with Ishmael.

7. What is the narrator’s reaction when he finally recognizes his creation myth as a myth?

8. What are the definitions Ishmael lays out for the narrator?

9. What does the sign that the narrator notices behind the gorilla say, and what does the narrator interpret it to mean?

10. What correlation does Ishmael draw between Nazi Germany and the narrator’s culture?

(see the answer keys)

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