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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. Where was Jane giving a lecture when her friendship with Sima fell apart?

2. Where did Darren have a job?

3. What is Darren drinking in the opening chapter?

4. Where would Darren put the things he had dreamed about and found?

5. What real-life events did Jonathan’s therapist see in his feelings about the Ziegler story?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the spread and why is it controversial?

2. How does the narrator characterize Adam’s role in the debate team?

3. What happens in the Herman Hesse story Jonathan talks about?

4. How does Jane characterize her relationship with Sima?

5. What emotions does Jane associate with having neglected to order airline tickets for a family trip?

6. How does the narrator’s perspective shift as he describes Adam’s return to shore and the process of reuniting with Amber?

7. What was the memory Sima helped Jane uncover?

8. How does Jonathan explain his success at the Foundation?

9. What is the story Amber told Adam in the car after they reconnected?

10. Where is Darren’s refuge, and what solace does he take there?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

When is The Topeka School most itself? What is its characteristic passage, or moment? What makes that moment or passage the most representative of the book as a whole? Are there any places where the book seems to depart from its typical self, as if to become a different book?

Essay Topic 2

Where is the climax of this book? Are there different climaxes? What questions does each climax resolve? What questions does each climax leave unanswered?

Essay Topic 3

Make a graphic representation of the action, development, and progress of The Topeka School. Then explain your work: what are the best variables by which to chart the book’s movement? What comes forward in a graphic representation that might be lost in an analytic paper?

(see the answer keys)

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