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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 does the doctor focus on?

2. After seeing himself for the first time in many months in the mirror, what reaction does Ivan Ilych have to what he sees?

3. When does Ivan Ilych's pain worsen?

4. What does Ivan Ilych guess the doctor's prognosis is?

5. When Ivan Ilych discovers what makes his pain worse, how does he deal with it?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the conflict that Ivan experiences in Chapter 8?

2. Examine the author's other main theme of this story.

3. Why do Ivan's wife and his doctor give him opium?

4. Why do Ivan's memories of the past make him feel the way they do?

5. Discuss an example of foreshadowing in Chapter 7.

6. Describe how Ivan's condition is affecting him in Chapter 7.

7. How is Ivan characterized in Chapter 3?

8. Explain the mood in Chapter 6.

9. Name four components of the plot in Chapter 1.

10. How is it possible that Ivan hasn't seen how thin and yellow he looks until his brother-in-law arrives?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Is Gerasim's being a peasant significant in the novel? Does it affect how he sees the world and how his character develops?

Essay Topic 2

Choose one of the major themes ("We die as we live" or "What constitutes a good life?") and explain what is meant by that theme. How does Tolstoy convey this theme throughout the novel?

Essay Topic 3

Explain and support how "The Death of Ivan Ilych" can change a reader's ideas about how to live. Look at the theme of the novel to answer the question. How has Ivan lived? Does Tolstoy's writing endorse Ivan's way of life? Does the tone of Tolstoy's writing warn against the way Ivan has lived?

(see the answer keys)

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