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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. Who is another victim brought into the hospital as Dunworthy is speaking to Badri?

2. What does Badri sat to Dunworthy?

3. What does Kivrin interrupt when she is walking?

4. What group of Americans are shortly expected?

5. What connection do Mary and Dunworthy find with the spread of the virus?

Short Essay Questions

1. Where does Dunworthy go after he's medically cleared, and what does he learn?

2. With whom does Kivrin speak and what is he doing?

3. Why does Badri come to find Dunworthy and where does Badri and Dunworthy go?

4. What explanation for who she is does Kivrin plan to give and what does she end up saying?

5. Who does Dunworthy try to communicate with again and what does he realize through talking with the man?

6. What is the policy about sending historians to the medieval period and how is the department getting around the policy?

7. What does Kivrin think in the confusion generated by her high fever?

8. Describe Badri.

9. Where do Dunworthy and Mary go and what are they waiting for?

10. What does Badri keep saying and where does Dunworthy take him?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Kivrin learns that the twelve year old Rosmund has been betrothed to an older man, Sir Bloet and is soon to marry. Discuss the following:

1. What are Kivrin's reactions to the news about Rosemund's upcoming marriage? Are her reactions typical for the time in which she is visiting? Why or why not?

2. Why do you think Rosemund accepts the idea of marrying a man so much older than she is? Do you think at her age she even understands what marriage means in the sexual sense?

Essay Topic 2

The time this novel takes place in 2054, approximately 44 years from the present time of 2010. Discuss the following:

1. Do you think technology will have advanced far enough in 44 years to have developed time travel?

2. Willis wrote this book in 1992. Do you think Willis set the novel in the year 2054 because she believes time travel will be developed by then? If not, why do you think she sets the novel such a short distance in the future from the time she writes the book?

3. Does it hinder the ability to "believe" the novel in that it is set in the near future and has such a highly technical ability such as time travel? Why or why not.

Essay Topic 3

In chapter 8, Dunworthy tries explaining to Gilchrist the "rules" of the net. Discuss the following:

1. Why is it impossible for the virus in the epidemic at Oxford in 2054 to have come through the net? Does the explanation seem to follow natural laws as we understand them in 2010?

2. Why can't Dunworthy just go back before the drop time and then retrieve Kivrin as she comes through?

3. Explain how slippage determines how far off one is when traveling back in time. Does the four-hour slippage that was a part of Kivrin's drop account for the twenty year difference between when she wanted to be dropped and when she actually is dropped? Why or why not.

4. Does the technology of the net and time travel seem stable enough that you would travel on it? Why or why not?

(see the answer keys)

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