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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 reward does Dagenham offer Foyle for information about the Nomad?

2. Who is the spokesperson to Foyle for the inhabitants of the Sargasso Asteroid?

3. What trade does Y'ang-Yeovil offer to Presteign?

4. How do Jiz and Foyle discover they have left the caverns and the Gouffre Martel?

5. Where does Harley Baker, M.D. make his real income?

Short Essay Questions

1. What keeps Foyle from divulging information about the whereabouts of the Nomad when he is questioned at the Nightmare Theater?

2. What is the relationship between Jiz and Sam Quatt?

3. Why does Foyle go to the Vancouver Presteign shipyards?

4. What procedure do the Scientific People perform on Foyle that makes him like them?

5. Describe Foyle and Jiz's escape from the prison.

6. What does Foyle discover on board the Nomad when he returns to the Sargasso Asteroid?

7. What happens as Foyle attempts to leave the asteroid with the safe from the Nomad?

8. What does Jiz ask of Harley Baker, and why is he qualified to do what she asks?

9. What happens to Foyle after he is able to leave the Sargasso Asteroid?

10. What happens to Foyle when he gets emotional or angry, and what does Jiz tell him to do about it?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In the last chapter of the book, Bester attempts something close to transcendence. The reader is faced with the questions: What does all this mean? What ultimately happened to Foyle? What will potentially happen to mankind? Is Foyle the "messiah? Answer these questions in detail, with the understanding that your answers are very subjective.

Essay Topic 2

Torture occurs several times in The Stars My Destination. Foyle is questioned and tortured in Chapter 4. Discuss how torture, in Foyle's case, is designed to alter an internal reality to generate and external result. Discuss the ironic truth that what drives Foyle also protects him from giving in to torture. Explain how revenge has given Foyle the sense of purpose that was missing in the first chapter.

Essay Topic 3

In the last two chapters of the book, author Bester basically throws convention to the wind and attempts to describe what happens with Foyle in hyperbolic language and graphic representations of what is fundamentally indescribable. Discuss Bester's use of these tools, how effective you felt they were, and share an alternate way of communicating the same truths without using the same conventions Bester did.

(see the answer keys)

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