View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Alena puts the pieces of a shattered sculpture by which artist into the unnamed narrator's hands?
(a) Henri Matisse.
(b) Salvador Dali.
(c) Jeff Koons.
(d) Andy Warhol.

2. What is the name of the old man who does so much cocaine at the party that it worries the unnamed narrator?
(a) Jimmy.
(b) Jack.
(c) Peter.
(d) Saul.

3. When the unnamed narrator rises for his first full day in Marfa, he finds his face covered in what substance?
(a) Paint.
(b) Blood.
(c) Makeup.
(d) Flour.

4. Looking at what sight always gives the unnamed narrator a "small thrill" (107)?
(a) A sunrise.
(b) Manhattan's skyline.
(c) The small of a woman's back.
(d) The onset of nighttime.

5. Which element of the physical world never gives the unnamed narrator a "little thrill" (107)?
(a) Built space.
(b) The sky.
(c) The ocean.
(d) The natural world.

Short Answer Questions

1. About what subject does the unnamed narrator pontificate when the intern begs him to speak aloud?

2. What does the unnamed narrator describe in his comments at Columbia's School of Arts as the "shadow language to Reagan's official narrative processing of the national tragedy" (114)?

3. What percentage of the unnamed narrator's bill at the hospital in Part Three is covered by his insurance?

4. The only book the unnamed narrator brings to the residency is a book belonging to which genre?

5. Noor tells the unnamed narrator that her late father had shared a "strong sense" of what kind of "identity" (99) with her?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the unnamed narrator meet Noor?

2. On what adventure does the unnamed narrator take eight-year-old Roberto in Part Three?

3. What are the consequences of the mistake the intern makes in Part Four?

4. What is the unnamed narrator's specific reason for feeling the way he does about the totaled art?

5. How does the unnamed narrator react to holding the Jeff Koons balloon dog sculpture in Part Three and how do Alena and Peter react to his reaction?

6. For what reason does the unnamed narrator travel to Texas in Part Four?

7. Name three excuses the unnamed narrator uses when people ask to see him during his writers' residency.

8. What aspect of Walt Whitman's strange autobiography Specimen Days disgusts the unnamed narrator and why?

9. What object does the unnamed narrator keep patting inside his pocket as he makes his way to the seventh floor of New-York Presbyterian Hospital?

10. What is "totaled art" (130) and how had Alena acquired some of it prior to the novel's opening?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,278 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample