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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 does the Volga river take the Viking crew?

2. What leader shatters the English army at Stirling Castle?

3. What happens when the Sea King ship is sighted?

4. Who is Hector Drummond?

5. What secret thing does Thorfinn bring to Jacob Olafson?

Short Essay Questions

1. When Thorfinn and his father are in the smithy, the men are talking politics. What point of view does MacTavish take?

2. Why does Isa Estquoy know more than the minister and doctor about the community of Norday?

3. What brings Jacob Olafson's wife Rena out of her fearful, furtive ways and back into life?

4. In the Song of the Broch, how does Thorfinn describe the sheltering castle?

5. Why did the invading ship men stop coming to claim land in the Orkney islands?

6. What does the poorest man in Norday believe politically?

7. What is the general opinion of Thorfinn in the village of Norday?

8. What is Mr. Harcourt-Smithers place within the island community?

9. Why are the children bored on the field trip to the broch?

10. What does the title of chapter 3 refer to?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The style of writing a story within a story is somewhat unique. What does this literary device allow the author to reveal about his main character, Thorfinn? Why doesn't he simply write a book of imaginative stories? How is this double layer of reality different? How does it affect the reader?

Essay Topic 2

Why does Thorfinn leave when the Aerodome project arrives? In the previous chapters he has always dealt with conflict and trouble with stories and imagination? Why doesn't he do that in chapter 7? What has changed? Is the challenge simply too great for him to face? Or has he become a man and is making a different kind of choice?

Essay Topic 3

Make a list of all the imaginative stories. What is the place of Thorfinn in each? How does his fictional character evolve? What does he learn (briefly) from each dream adventure?

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