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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. How long is the sun's trip around the Milky Way?

2. What is Ayl doing when Qfwfq finally locates her?

3. What do Ayl and her friends play ball with?

4. What do the characters collect from the moon?

5. How does Qfwfq feel at first, after realizing he is trapped on the moon?

Short Essay Questions

1. How is Qfwfq and Pfwfp's final game resolved?

2. How does Qfwfq describe the new atoms that are formed?

3. How is the food that the characters collect from the moon made?

4. What traps Ayl at the end of the story?

5. Why does Qfwfq say he could not make an accurate guess as to how many beings their were at the point before the Big Bang?

6. What does Granny think is happening when light first appears?

7. How does Pfwfp start acting strangely, as the game between him and Qfwfq goes on?

8. What does Granny say has happened after the darkness comes again at the end of the story?

9. What happens to the family and the planet after G'd(w)^n leaves?

10. What does Qfwfq find that Pfwfp is doing when he follows his playmate?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Throughout COSMICOMICS, Qfwfq feels judged by others, and characters enter into petty squabbles with each other. Discuss judgment throughout COSMICOMICS.

1) In "A Sign in Space," why does Qfwfq feel judged? What reasons does he have to feel that others are judging him? How does he judge himself?

2) In "All at One Point," how do the characters judge and criticize each other? Why is Mrs. Ph(i)NK_0 immune to this judgmental behavior?

3) How do Qfwfq and his uncle judge each other in "The Aquatic Uncle"? Where do their opinions of each other stem from?

4) In "The Light-Years," why does the narrator feel judged? How does he judge himself? How does his perception of being judged affect his actions and his relationship with others?

Essay Topic 2

Because the stories in COSMICOMICS discuss the natural world examined by science, they address mankind's relationship to the natural world. Discuss the relationship between man and the natural world in COSMICOMICS.

1) What is the relationship between the world of mankind and the natural world of the mollusk in "The Spiral"?

2) How is mankind related to the evolution of the universe? How does life on Earth contrast with the natural world before life developed?

3) How do natural forces like evolution and changes in the universe affect characters in the stories?

Essay Topic 3

Many of the stories in COSMICOMICS revolve around love. Discuss love in Calvino's stories.

1) Who are the women that the central characters fall in love with? What attracts the central characters to women in the stories?

2) What do women love in the stories? How do the women interact with the men who love them, and with the ones they love?

3) Why are there no happy endings to the love stories in Calvino's collection? What ways does love end? What does this say about Calvino's attitude toward love?

(see the answer keys)

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