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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 Gawyn say about taking Kivrin to where he found her?

2. What friend of Dunworthy's dies in the epidemic?

3. What does Gilchrist have no intention of doing?

4. Who is still incoherent?

5. What does Dunworthy ask Montoya?

Short Essay Questions

1. What happens to the envoy and what does Kirvin realize as a result?

2. What do Mary and Dunworthy realize when Montoya is brought into the hospital and how does Dunworthy react?

3. What happens as Kivrin prepares to travel to Scotland with Fr. Roche and Rosemund?

4. What does Andrew say when Dunworthy asks him to come work the lab machines? What does it not matter?

5. Why does Father Roche return to where the clerk lies and what does Kirvin ask of him?

6. Describe the scene where Kivrin goes to mass with the family and her talk with Gawyn on the way home.

7. Describe the discussion between Badri and Dunworthy about Kirvin's time travel.

8. What does Kivrin write in her Doomsday Book about various victims?

9. What does Kivrin first do upon realizing the date and what is wrong with the clerk?

10. What does Dunworthy realize when talking to Badri?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

Oftentimes, a book is more of a character-driven plot rather than action driven, and oftentimes the other way. Some books seem to balance the two. Discuss the following:

1. What do you think it means to say that a plot is character-driven or action-driven?

2. How do you think a plot differs if it is character-driven versus action-driven?

3. Which type of plot do you find more interesting? Why?

4. Do you think it is possible to have a plot where action and character development share equal time? Why or why not?

5. What type of plot do you think the Doomsday Book is? Explain your response.

Essay Topic 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

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