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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. Which of the following is NOT a place that Oedipa encountered the WASTE symbol?
(a) A message in a fortune cookie.
(b) An herbalist's window in Chinatown.
(c) Written in chalk on a sidewalk.
(d) Gang jackets of delinquents at the city beach.

2. What does Oedipa see on an airmail stamp with a jet flying by the Capital dome that is on the letter the old drunk asks her to mail?
(a) A dead badger on top of the dome.
(b) A WASTE symbol on the plane.
(c) A suspicious black figure on top of the dome.
(d) A suspicious black figure flying the plane.

3. What does the Nefastis Machine do?
(a) Sort postal symbols.
(b) Sort hot and cold molecules.
(c) Create thermodynamics.
(d) Create Nuclear warheads.

4. Suffering nightmares and various symptoms, Oedipa goes to a doctor and requests a pregnancy test under what name?
(a) Mrs. Metzger.
(b) Grace Bortz.
(c) Enda Mosh.
(d) Mrs. Maas.

5. Oedipa pieces together an account of how the Tristero organization began in what year?
(a) 1577.
(b) 1567.
(c) 1967.
(d) 1757.

Short Answer Questions

1. Tristero y Calavera set up his own postal system and called himself El Desheredado, which meant what?

2. When Mucho interviews Oedipa after she leaves Dr. Hilarius's office, what name does her call her?

3. Oedipa has a conversation in a bar with the wearer of the lapel pin, and he tells her he is a member of what group?

4. After losing noble patronage, the majority of Tristero members fled to where during 1849-50?

5. Who does Oedipa try to call from a phone booth before she heads to the bookstore?

Short Essay Questions

1. When Oedipa visits Vesperhaven House, what does Mr. Thoth tell her about his dream?

2. Inamorati Anonymous' association to the muted post horn symbol seems purely accidental, yet what are some similarities this group has to the Tristero?

3. In addition to visiting John Nefastis, why does Oedipa need to go to Berkeley?

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

5. As Oedipa sits in rush hour traffic on the Bay Bridge, what does she determine she knows about Tristero?

6. Bortz hands Oedipa an ancient book about the Italian travels of Dr. Diocletian Blobb. What does this story have to do with the Trystero?

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

8. Why does Nefastis contend that only a sensitive person can work his machine?

9. At the end of Chapter 4, Genghis Cohen explains to Oedipa that the dandelion wine is clear now, but becomes cloudy in the spring when the dandelions begin to bloom, as if the dandelions in the wine remembered. What does Oedipa muse about this?

10. What is significant about the fact that the founder of Tristero, Hernando Joaquin de Tristero y Calavera, called himself The Disinherited?

(see the answer keys)

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