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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. Was Nothdurft's diary found?

2. Why did Karl Blach take Huber's place?

3. What did Derungs and Albrecht use instead of a bivouac bag on their ascent up the North Face?

4. What did Edmund Geer and Wolfang Görter do while Derungs and Albrecht were climbing the North Face?

5. What did the friend Nothdurft and Mayer visited before leaving think of Nothdurft's behavior on the mountain?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the attempt to climb the North Face by Brian Nally and Barry Brewster in 1962.

2. Describe what was done to lower Alfred Hellepart down the mountain in a rescue attempt.

3. What is Harrer's attitude toward Italians?

4. Describe the climb of the first women to attempt the North Face.

5. What does Harrer say about Corti's knowledge of the North Face of the Eiger?

6. How were Albert Rabada and Ernesto Navarra's bodies recovered?

7. Why does Harrer call the climb by Radovan KuchaÅ™ and Zdeno Zibrin cautious?

8. What happened in the attempts to climb the North Face in 1953?

9. What made the Difficult Crack and the Hinterstoisser Traverse easier to climb for Mayr than for early climbers?

10. What happened to Erich Vanis, Hans Ratay, and Karl Lugmayer on the Ice Bulge?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Harrer sees taming the North Slope as expanding the domain of humanity. Discuss this aspect of the book.

1) Is humanity's intellectual and physical domain expanded by the successful attempts to climb the North Face? How does this expand human accomplishment?

2) How does Harrer ultimately feel about the affect of humans climbing the North Face? Once the North Face has been repeatedly climbed, has something been lost as well as gained?

3) Is the expansion of the human domain inherently good? Is it inevitable? How does the North Face fit into the bigger picture of human accomplishment?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the relationship of money and climbing in the book.

1) How does Harrer portray climbers who have financial backing versus those who have little money and equipment?

2) How does poverty affect the ability of climbers to be successful?

3) Is Harrer's portrayal of impoverished young climbers romanticized?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the point of view of Harrer's THE WHITE SPIDER.

1) How does Harrer portray climbers and events that he knows of through research, compared to those that he knows personally?

2) How does the shift in point of view to Harrer's personal account of his experiences affect the book?

3) When does Harrer use personal narration, aside from the account of his own climb of the North Face? How do these personal interjections affect the book?

(see the answer keys)

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