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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 waiting at the narrator's apartment when he comes back from lunch?

2. Who was with their mother the last few days before she died?

3. What plans with Megan has the narrator forgotten?

4. What medicine does the narrator take from Megan's bathroom?

5. Who does the narrator call after leaving the club?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the significance of the rolls of bread?

2. Why does Michael say he never liked Amanda?

3. What does the reader learn about Megan's past?

4. Why does the narrator go to the party with Tad?

5. Why does the narrator leap out of the limo to escape his conversation with Bernie, the drug lord?

6. What does Michael theorize may have spurred the narrator to marry Amanda?

7. How does Michael's reappearance change the narrator's demeanor?

8. What happens when the narrator and Amanda speak?

9. Why does Megan invite the narrator to dinner at her apartment?

10. Why is the narrator unsettled by the absence of Amanda's mannequin?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the narrator's elitism.

1) How has the narrator's love of fiction contributed to this elitism? Why does he feel he must alter the truth about his job to strangers?

2) Why is the narrator so concerned with being "in" rather than "out"? How much of this fear drives his friendship with Tad Allagash?

3) Could his need to be one of the elite have contributed to his relationship with Amanda? Why or why not?

Essay Topic 2

Do a character analysis of Clara Tillinghast. Include:

1) Her professional background.

2) Her attitude toward the narrator, both past and present.

Describe the scene where she fires the narrator. How does she react when he essentially steals her thunder? Does she get angrier that he is not upset?

Essay Topic 3

Do a character analysis of Alex Hardy. Include:

1) His professional background.

2) His medical background.

3) His relationship to the narrator.

Why does the narrator have such respect for Alex? Where is Alex by the end of the novel, and will the experience change him?

(see the answer keys)

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