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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. The Paranoids sing a song recounting how men like __________ seduce younger women?
(a) Metzger.
(b) Humbert Humbert.
(c) Miles.
(d) Mucho.

2. Tristero y Calavera set up his own postal system and called himself El Desheredado, which meant what?
(a) The Disenfranchised.
(b) The Dangerous.
(c) The Disinherited.
(d) The Desperate.

3. What happens to Oedipa after she knocks on the door of Dr. Hilarius's office in Chapter 5?
(a) He gives her LSD.
(b) He takes her hostage.
(c) He makes love to her.
(d) He begs her to run away with him.

4. What is the name of the religious splinter group Bortz attributes to changing the pornographic version of the play?
(a) Purtians.
(b) Scurvhamites.
(c) Thurn and Taxis.
(d) Schumites.

5. A young female graduate student reveals to Oedipa that ________ drowned himself in the Pacific Ocean two days ago.
(a) Inverarity.
(b) Driblette.
(c) Nefastis.
(d) Metzger.

Short Answer Questions

1. As Oedipa drives to Berkeley to find the source text for the Jacobean revenge play, she misses the exit to where?

2. Genghis Cohen shows Oedipa a Pony Express stamp from 1940 with the _______ symbol on the back.

3. Genghis Cohen claims that the stamp, which depicts a Pony Express rider galloping out of a western fort into a black feather, is what?

4. In Oedipa's search for the source text for the Jacobean revenge play , the publisher sends her to a warehouse in what city?

5. Mucho's boss, Funch, says Mucho is losing his identity and becoming more ________.

Short Essay Questions

1. Oedipa compares her search for The Tristero to what process?

2. What is the story behind the founding of Inamorati Anonymous?

3. The men Oedipa meets on her journey end up abandoning her. What were some of their fates and what did they represent?

4. What is the paradox that Oedipa discovers concerning the Trystero couplet from Driblette's play?

5. What does the historical marker that Oedipa remembers seeing at Fangoso Lagoons commemorate?

6. How is the campus of Cal State different from when Oedipa was in college?

7. Why are WASTE mail boxes located under freeways?

8. What is Pynchon ridiculing through all of Oedipa's in-depth research into the Trystero?

9. According to Jesus Arrabal, what is the miracle of Inverarity?

10. What is meant by Oedipa seeing Genghis Cohen, the philatelist, framed in a long succession of doorways?

(see the answer keys)

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