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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. Who is Mrs. Grales?

2. What does Paulo say Taddeo's evidence comes from?

3. What happens to the King of Loredo?

4. What do the Asians claim the nuclear detonation is?

5. What does Taddeo request for his journey?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Taddeo think Kornhoer would be valuable to him?

2. Describe the legend of Leibowitz's death.

3. Why have nuclear weapons been banned?

4. What shocks the abbot most about Kornhoer's invention?

5. What power does New Rome give Joshua's colony, in the event of the destruction of the Earth?

6. Why do the Poet's jokes cause so much upset at the dinner?

7. What is Armbruster's attitude toward books and toward Taddeo's studies?

8. What story does Zerchi tell the dying woman, to convince her not to kill herself and her child?

9. How is Zerchi required to practice what he preaches about suffering and euthanasia?

10. Why doesn't Taddeo want to alienate Hannegan?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss leadership in the novel. What qualities make for a good leader? Discuss both political leaders and religious leaders portrayed in the book. How do their leadership styles and beliefs lead to success and failure, both personally and for the communities they lead?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the nature of knowledge in the novel.

Part 1) What do the Memorabilia represent? Why do the monks want to preserve it?

Part 2) Is knowledge good or evil or neutral? What are the consequences, positive and negative, of mankind's gaining of knowledge? How does knowledge in the novel relate to the story of the Garden of Eden and the fall of man for tasting the fruit of the tree of knowledge?

Part 3) Can knowledge be permanently lost?

Essay Topic 3

Does the novel contain miracles, or is it ambiguous? Describe in your discussion possible miraculous events in the novel, including the life of the Old Jew and the actions of Rachel at the end of the novel. What are the possible natural explanations of these events? If these events are miraculous, what is their purpose and meaning, and what do they say about the nature of God?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 738 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample