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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. What unplanned benefit does the shell give the narrator?

2. How does Dean (k)yK try to back out of the bet that there will be atoms?

3. Where does N'ba N'ga live?

4. Who gives Qfwfq and Dean (k)yK the libraries, magazines, and computers they need for their calculations?

5. What does Qfwfq discover when he goes to spy out the reported dinosaurs?

Short Essay Questions

1. In the end of the mollusk's story, in what way does he encounter the female mollusk?

2. Describe Lieutenant Fenimore.

3. How does the narrator see evolution as confining?

4. Describe the problems with the advice N'ba N'ga gives his family.

5. Which bets does Qfwfq find most satisfying?

6. How does Lll react when she first meets N'ba N'ga?

7. What second enormous hand sign does the narrator make, and why?

8. In what way, according to the narrator's description, does the existence of a shell bring about eyes and the ability to see?

9. When does the narrator suppose that he might finally meet Ursula, and what does he fear about that potential meeting?

10. What does Qfwfq do with the body of the dinosaur the New Ones find?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The stories in COSMICOMICS take place at different points of the universe, where distance and space play an important role. Discuss space and distance in COSMICOMICS.

1) What role does space and distance play in "All at One Point"? How does the confinement of a single point of space compare to the expanded universe and affect characters' perceptions and behaviors?

2) What role does space and distance play in "The Distance of the Moon" and "The Form of Space"? How does distance relate to love and attraction?

3) What role does space and distance play in "Games Without End?" What does the ending of the story say about space and distance?

Essay Topic 2

COSMICOMICS deals with the divisions that exist between the self and others, and the relationship of one's inner self to the society of others outside one's self. Discuss the dichotomy between self and others in COSMICOMICS.

1) How are the characters in "All at One Point" separate from each other and yet unified? What role does the separation between self and others have in quibbling and pettiness? What role does the unification of separate individuals play in the expansion of the point at the end of the story?

2) In "Games without End," how is Pfwfp a reflection of Qfwfq? In what other stories are "others" a reflection of the narrator's self, and to what extent?

3) How are relatives, who share history and genetic makeup, a part of the characters in the story and in some ways an extension of the self?

Essay Topic 3

Throughout COSMICOMICS, characters generate ideas for the first time and do or conceive of things before the things themselves, or integral parts of those things, exist. Discuss these prototypes in COSMICOMICS.

1) How does Qfwfq think about the first sign? What is the significance of the sign being the "first"? How does this prototype differ from later signs?

2) How does the society in the point in "All at One Point" function as a prototype of later societies that will exist in the expanded universe?

3) How do the characters in "How Much Shall We Bet?" create a prototype of betting? How does betting change as the universe develops?

4) Why are there so many prototypes throughout COSMICOMICS? How are they related to each other and to the themes of the story collection?

(see the answer keys)

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