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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 does the Kid meet sitting around a campfire?

2. What does the company find in the hut?

3. Who shoots the Indian leader?

4. How long has the Mexican war been over?

5. What language can the Judge speak?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Tobin admire the Judge?

2. Where is the Kid taken when he is arrested?

3. Describe the fight with the bear.

4. How did the Judge help the gang massacre the Indians?

5. What horrors do Sproule and the Kid see on their walk?

6. Describe the Kid's time in town with the other recruits.

7. Describe the Kentuckian soldier.

8. Describe the gang's time in Carralitos.

9. How does the Kid get to Nacogdoches?

10. What does the sergeant want from the Kid?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Examine the novel's violence.

1) Is the violence accurate to how it really was?

2) How did such an environment affect characters like the Kid? Did they become immune to the violence? How would someone like the Kid cope when he is back in normal society having seen so much death?

3) Does McCarthy representation of violence have a point to make about contemporary society?

Essay Topic 2

Look at the structure of the novel.

1) How does McCarthy use character and dialogue to drive the narrative.

2) Discuss elements of the narrative structure: Exposition, conflict, complication, climax, resolution and conclusion. Do all the elements make for a logical and linear story? How does the story's structure express the novel's themes?

3) Away from the main character, examine the way McCarthy uses the other characters in the story. When does he introduce and take them away from the story? What effect does it have on the story?

Essay Topic 3

Examine how much the Kid's upbringing was responsible for the person he became? What did he learn from his parents that made him into the person he became? How much did his father's blaming him for his mother's death affect him? Did it make him become a cold person? Would things have been any different if had met less violent people on his travels?

(see the answer keys)

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