View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What word does A.R. Black cross out on his file card?

2. Which of the following is the first word that the narrator of Why I'm Not Where You Are loses?

3. Which Black lives in the same building as Oskar?

4. What famous person writes Oskar Schell in Googolplex?

5. What do the guard, Grandma's uncle, and the killer in My Feelings have in common?

Short Essay Questions

1. What cautionary story does Grandma's own grandmother tell in her letter in My Feelings?

2. How do the Blacks of chapters past reappear in this chapter?

3. How does Grandma write her memoirs in Why I'm Not Where You Are?

4. What is Thomas Schell doing when he begins to lose his words?

5. How does Thomas Schell Sr. speak after losing his voice?

6. Why does Grandma get samples of letters as a child in My Feelings?

7. What did Oskar Schell do with the phone after his father's call on September 11, 2001?

8. What two ways does Oskar communicate with Grandma in Googolplex?

9. What is the significance of the storage unit in The Only Animal?

10. How does Thomas Schell's silence affect his living situation?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay about the marriage between Grandma and Thomas Schell, Sr. How do they find their way into each other's lives and to what extent does the tragedy of Dresden's demise play a central role in bringing them together? Chart the progression of their relationship in America form reconnection to courtship and through their marriage. How does the development of rules lead to the eventual end of their marriage? What happens when he returns to her?

Essay Topic 2

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is, at its roots, a study of human yearning for love in the face of brutal cataclysm. In the novel, characters lose each other and find each other in the crucible of tragedy. Write an essay about this in three parts:

Part 1) What is lost to the major character of the novel in the wake of the attack of September 11, 2001? How are existing bonds strengthened in the wake of this tragedy? In this paragraph, discuss the relationships among Oskar, Mom, and Grandma.

Part 2) Write a paragraph about the bombing of Dresden. How does this horrific event of World War II affect the Schell and Schmidt families? Who is lost in this bombing? How does the bombing, in the end, lead to another marriage and the birth of a child?

Part 3) In summation, discuss how a marriage that was destroyed by the memories of Dresden is reunited in the wake of September 11th. Who returns to whom in the aftermath? What characters begin to learn about their roots as a result of this reunion?

Essay Topic 3

Oskar Schell is a fearful child, and his fears can fall into two camps that are real and imagined. Write an essay discussing these two types of fear and how they manifest themselves in the novel. For example, how do Dr. Fein and Jimmy represent a very real, concrete adversity to Oskar? What genuine concerns for his life do they present? Conversely, discuss the imagined dangers that haunt Oskar throughout the novel. From where do these fears derive and how do they affect his daily life?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,107 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample