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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. Oedipa flees Berkley in Chapter 5 and finds herself on a freeway at rush hour, heading for _________.
(a) The Bay Bridge.
(b) Los Angelos.
(c) The wharf.
(d) San Francisco.

2. Stanley Koteks tells Oedipa ________________ is a "symptom of the gutlessness of the whole society."
(a) Science.
(b) Teamwork.
(c) Patents.
(d) Money.

3. Who does Oedipa dream about as she sleeps in the hotel in Berkeley?
(a) Driblette.
(b) Inverarity.
(c) Mucho.
(d) Metzger.

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

5. Bortz leads Oedipa into a study to view woodcut illustrations from the pornographic version of the play. What does she see hovering in the background of the obscene images?
(a) Trystero.
(b) WASTE symbol.
(c) Love.
(d) Death.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is on the cover of the book she purchases at Zapf's Used Books?

2. Bortz imagines one visionary militant addressing a group of Tristero members in a tavern to propose a merger with official postal couriers. What name does he give to this visionary?

3. Genghis Cohen shows Oedipa an old German stamp with Thurn and Taxis printed on it which has a special symbol in each corner. He suggests that the extra mark on the symbol is a ______.

4. After finding a copy of Plays of Ford, Webster, Tourneur and Wharfinger, Oedipa discovers a note that says "trystero" may be derived from the Italian word "triste." What does this word mean?

5. Which of the following is NOT a place that Oedipa encountered the WASTE symbol?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Oedipa consider her job as co-executor to be similar to Driblette's job as director of a play?

2. Why are WASTE mail boxes located under freeways?

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

4. When Oedipa and Metzger go back to The Scope in Chapter 4, Mike Fallopian explains that there exists what kind of underground group?

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

6. Oedipa discovers that the line from Driblette's version in Plays of Ford, Webster, Tourneur and Wharfinger about Trystero was replaced by another referring to what?

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

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

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

10. The overall crisis Oedipa faces by the end of the novel could be summed up how?

(see the answer keys)

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