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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. What do most islanders feel about Olafson's death?

2. What is Jeremy Smith watching during the school lesson about brochs?

3. Who does Jacob Olafson bring back with him to Norday Island?

4. Who does Madeline Olafson marry?

5. What do the visitors bring to the Prince Boris in Thorfinn's first dream?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why is the horse, Seamus, killed on the road to Stirling Castle?

2. What is the family situation of Matthew Ragnarson at the beginning of the book?

3. How are the men of the North treated when they had sailed into the Byzantium empire?

4. What sorts of food do Thorfinn and Sir James MacTavish eat on their way to Stirling Castle?

5. Why is Mr. Simon's lesson on Bannockburn so boring?

6. Why does Thorfinn not know what the circular ruin is that stands on the shore a mere half mile from his home?

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

8. Why does the author call the gathering at the Norday blacksmith shop "the village parliament?"

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The theme of the disintegration of the broch is carried through chapter 4 from beginning to end. Write an essay on the image of the stones slowly falling into the ocean. Pick out all the examples of this through the chapter and explain the meaning of this symbolic destruction and loss of history, stone by stone.

Essay Topic 2

What is the effect of the Aerodrome project upon the Island of Norday? How does this project change their way of life forever? What do the workers bring? What do they destroy?

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?

(see the answer keys)

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