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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapters 1-2.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who dies as the novel opens?
(a) Catherine Ballard.
(b) Dr. Helen Remington.
(c) Dr. Robert Vaughan.
(d) James Ballard.

2. What word does Ballard repeat several times in his description of the car crash at the beginning of the book?
(a) Stylized.
(b) Stoic.
(c) Strange.
(d) Static.

3. According to Ballard at the end of Chapter 2, the radiator grills of their cars resembled what?
(a) A "positive force."
(b) A "protective grimace."
(c) A "perverse union."
(d) A "peaceful sleep."

4. Where does the fatal car crash that nearly misses Elizabeth Taylor occur?
(a) At an airport.
(b) Near a film studio.
(c) Next to a school.
(d) By a park.

5. According to Ballard, "For Vaughan, the car-crash and his own ______ had made their final marriage."
(a) Depression.
(b) Health.
(c) Sexuality.
(d) Faith.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the name of the place where Vaughan and Ballard watch vehicles crash into concrete blocks?

2. According to Ballard, why does the young wife who is removed from her car after the crash resemble a "mentally defective girl" he once saw perform in a play?

3. As Ballard is taken to the hospital after his crash, he recalls that "Vaughan collected the _____of ________nurses in his photographic albums."

4. As Ballard waits for someone to reassure him after the crash, what does he imagine firemen doing with carbon dioxide sprays?

5. The firemen who cut Ballard's door from its hinges looked like what according to Ballard?

(see the answer key)

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