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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. What is the one sound that test pilots' wives are most afraid of?
(a) The church bells.
(b) The telephone.
(c) The door bell.
(d) The sound of a plane's engine.

2. Why is Pete Conrad transferred to the Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland?
(a) Because he requested a post involving less danger.
(b) Because he is promoted to Lieutenant.
(c) Because he is entering the Navy's test-pilot school.
(d) Because he has to prepare for combat missions in Korea.

3. What is the most difficult routine in military flying?
(a) Formation flying.
(b) All-weather flying.
(c) Carrier landings.
(d) Instrument-only flying.

4. When a pilot is in the air and looking down at the ground, what does he most often feel?
(a) Grateful he has the opportunity to fly.
(b) Superior to the people below.
(c) Like it's time to get back to base.
(d) Airsick.

5. What does Gus Grissom find to be the strangest experience for him in the beginning of the press conference?
(a) As soon as they appear, reporters start firing questions at them.
(b) The flashing light bulbs from all of the cameras causes him to have a seizure.
(c) The absolute silence of the conference room as the pilots walk through the curtain for the first time is the strangest thing.
(d) The photographers are so eager for pictures of the astronauts and they haven't even been introduced yet.

Short Answer Questions

1. What record does Bob White set during one of his X-15 flights?

2. While most fighter pilots revel in driving fast sports cars, John Glenn does not. What car does he drive?

3. What does the author compare the career path of a fighter pilot to?

4. Why do fighter pilots have an intense dislike for flight surgeons?

5. Which of the astronauts commands the least star power?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why do the astronauts not refer to themselves or the other astronauts as "astronauts"?

2. What is the begrudging consensus finally reached from the Konakai Séance regarding their "off hours" behavior?

3. In detailing the experiences of the astronauts, the author states that "everywhere they went in their travels people stopped what they were doing and gave them a certain look of awe and sympathy." Awe is easily understood. Why do they look at them with sympathy?

4. According to the author, why does every pilot sound the same and talk with a lilting, vaguely Southern-sounding drawl?

5. As the number of killed pilots rises, how does that affect the mood of Pete Conrad?

6. Describe Jane Conrad's nightmares and hallucinations?

7. What is the procedures trainer?

8. Contrast flight training with astronaut training.

9. Name two reasons that fighter pilots hate to declare an emergency.

10. Why do many pilots choose to try to pilot a wounded aircraft to the ground rather than eject?

(see the answer keys)

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