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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 the head of the History Department at Oxford?

2. What is Badri supposed to do?

3. Who does Dunworthy visit?

4. What does Dunworthy tell Badri about his illness.

5. Where does Dunworthy take Badri?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. What are some of the problems of quarantine with which Dunworthy has to handle?

4. Why is Kivrin having trouble understanding the people in the house and how does the situation improve?

5. What is Kivrin trying to do in chapter 6 but having a hard time with?

6. Describe some of the preparations Kivrin makes for the trip back in time.

7. Why is Dunworthy out trying to find an open store?

8. What does Kivrin write in her Doomsday Book in Chapter 14?

9. What is Ms. Montoya doing as Kivrin is preparing for her trip, and how is this related to Kivrin?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the following:

1. What do you think are the characteristics of a successful novel?

2. Analyze and discuss Doomsday Book based upon the criteria you decide upon in #1 and judge if Doomsday Book is a successful novel. Explain your rationale with specific examples.

3. Do you think the fact that Doomsday Book falls within the science fiction genre changes the criteria upon which its success should be judged? Explain.

Essay Topic 2

The fact that an epidemic is taking place in both the present time of 2054 and the past time of 1348 is an interesting way to organize Doomsday Book. Discuss the following:

1. Compare/contrast the way Kivrin deals with the Plague epidemic with how Mary Ahrens deals with the viral epidemic in 2054.

2. Though medical science has advanced considerably in 2054 from 1348, still sixteen people die in modern-day Oxford in the epidemic. Do you think medicine will ever advance to the point that disease no longer kills people? What about that people no longer become ill? Would this be a good thing? Why or why not?

3. What do you think are the causes of epidemics? What theories are there among the medical community? Do you think the theories make sense?

Essay Topic 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

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