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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. When the unnamed narrator feels "too tired to write" (173) one day during his residency he watches The Passion of Joan of Arc, the favorite film of which character?

2. To what type of restaurant did Noor's mother take her to tell her the identity of her biological father?

3. What is NOT a source to which people have ascribed "the Marfa Lights," though scientists claim they are "atmospheric reflections" (192)?

4. The unnamed narrator states that "the most riveting and disturbing and particular passages" of his one book "are about" (166) which topic?

5. After the art showing, when the unnamed narrator goes to dinner at Cochineal, which character gets interrupted each time he tries to contribute to the conversation?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What mistake does the intern make in Part Four and what similar mistake does the unnamed narrator make?

3. 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?

4. Why does Alex caution the unnamed narrator not to write about medical issues and what evidence does she use for her argument?

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

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

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

8. Discuss an instance when Lerner includes an allusion to one of his own literary works.

9. Who is Michael and how does the unnamed narrator meet him?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the function of the unnamed narrator's best friend Alex within the novel? Discuss the characterization methods used by Lerner in depicting Alex and include in your discussion the reasons that Lerner portrays Alex in these particular ways.

Essay Topic 2

Sensory details are used frequently by Lerner in order to create vivid pictures of each character's progression through the narrative of 10:04. Choose three scenes in which sensory details are heavily used and discuss how the sensory details used serve Lerner’s creation of vivid characters to populate the narrative.

Essay Topic 3

Discuss Lerner’s use of the motif of sound within the novel 10:04.

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