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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 Daniel's landlord in his Lithuanian apartment building?

2. What does Kim Peek's father, Fran, tell Daniel to say to Kim upon meeting him?

3. How does Daniel meet his partner, Neil?

4. Who is Kim Peek?

5. What does the National Autistic Society in England suggest as a fairer alternative to a job interview for autistic people?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why did Daniel end up walking up the steep hill of Volunteer Ave. on his commute to the Volunteer Center?

2. During his training for Volunteer Services, what were the main learning goals for Daniel and the class?

3. What is Daniel's relationship with words?

4. Why did Daniel think about creating his own private language when he was young?

5. When Daniel returns to his family's new home after a year in Lithuania, why must he readjust to living there?

6. Describe Daniel's state of mind as he recited pi for an audience for more than five hours.

7. Why do you think the woman who interviewed Daniel at the Volunteer Services Overseas office might have thought he was a perfect candidate to teach English overseas?

8. What aspects of language does Daniel find more difficult than others to understand?

9. What had Daniel learned during his year in Kaunas?

10. Why did Daniel's travels and meetings during the making of Brainman and his appearances on television give him such a feeling of elation?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Daniel was part of a large family. Did this in any way help him? How? What might he have learned from his siblings? What could he have taught them?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss Daniel's many obsessions. Are these obsessions the results of Asperger's or being a savant? What made others so exasperated with him? How did his parents treat these obsessions? Were they correct to do so?

Essay Topic 3

Pi is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. Daniel (as well as many others) is fascinated with pi. It is an infinite, irrational number. Daniel spends a chapter in the book explaining pi and his relationship with it. Why do you think this fascinates him? Does he see pi in the same way that he experiences other numbers and words? Why, besides raising money for epilepsy research, does Daniel learn pi to some many decimal places at all?

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This section contains 935 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample