View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Before the soldiers provide a spade, what do the inmates use to try to bury the Thief?

2. What is the Doctor pretending to look at when his wife wakes up?

3. Who pick's up the spade from the soldiers?

4. Which of the following is not among the objects that internees saw immediately before going blind?

5. Why does the Girl with Dark Glasses' companion abandon her when she goes blind?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the First Man's Wife's reaction to her husband when she comes home.

2. What is the Doctor's Wife's reaction to her husbands hypothesis about his blindness?

3. By this point, is the dispersal of food effectively organized by Chapter 7?

4. How does the Man with the Eye-Patch describe the state of the outside world?

5. Who in the first ward dies in the hail of fire?

6. Describe the asylum dormitory.

7. What bit of knowledge does the Thief reveal to the Doctor's Wife on the night of his death? What will he do with this knowledge?

8. What happens when the hundreds of new internees are delivered to quarantine?

9. How does the Thief suffer an injury?

10. What is the Doctor's conclusion about the origin of his blindness?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

After the central characters leave quarantine, they discover a city where absence of sight has rendered private property nonexistent:

Part 1) Examine the overview of the situation as related by the anonymous man that the Doctor's Wife speaks to as she is walking to the city? What function do residences and stores serve in this new society?

Part 2) Which characters within the group cling to the hope that they will find their old home, and which give up this hope? Prior to regaining their sight, do they find a home?

Part 3) Examine the First Man's arrangement with the Writer living in his house. How has the First Man's attitude toward private property changed since the beginning of the novel?

Essay Topic 2

Consider the government's plan for dealing with the white sickness. Knowing what transpires as time goes on, what steps could be taken to avoid the spread of the disease? If none, what course of action could have been taken to protect the population of the unnamed country?

Essay Topic 3

Within the quarantine, the dueling forces of authoritarian power and chaos are juxtaposed. The central narrative is the conflict of these opposing forces:

Part 1) Compare and contrast the government's plan for controlling the epidemic through quarantine with its plan for maintaining order within the quarantine.

Part 2) Discuss the results of the rules set down by the government to maintain order in quarantine with their results. Which rules are effective and which are discarded immediately?

Part 3) Compare the authoritarian rule of the government over the blind internees with the authoritarian rule of the Thugs over the other wards.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 904 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample