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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. How does Abby Black know William Black?

2. What does Oskar suspect Feliz is lying about Agnes Black in Happiness, Happiness?

3. What does Oskar think is "grody" about the story of The Sixth Borough?

4. Which best describes the location of the Sixth Borough?

5. Why does Oskar want to know how his father died?

Short Essay Questions

1. What can Thomas not bring himself to tell Grandma at the end of Why I'm Not Where You Are?

2. Why does the trip to Agnes Black's apartment stir Oskar's curiosity in Happiness, Happiness?

3. How does Oskar overcome a phobia in Alive and Alone?

4. What does Dad relate about optimism to Oskar in the The Sixth Borough?

5. What major item movement happens between the sixth borough and and Manhattan as it drifts off?

6. How does Oskar's presentation go at the beginning of Happiness, Happiness?

7. In A Simple Solution to an Impossible Problem, what does William Black reveal is the purpose of the key?

8. What decision does Oskar make at the end of Alive and Alone?

9. What does Stephen Hawking say to Oskar in A Simple Solution to an Impossible Problem?

10. What is revealed by the long jump at the beginning of The Sixth Borough?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay about the relationship between Grandma and her sister Anna. Focus primarily on the period immediately before the bombing of Dresden. How is one girl experiencing sexuality at the same time as another is experiencing an innocent curiosity about sexually? How are they both bound to Thomas Schell, Sr. before the bombing happens? To what extent is Anna's death instrumental in bringing Grandma and Thomas together in America?

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay about the character of Grandma. To what extent is she portrayed as woman who beholds all the pain of the world and continues to love? Who does she lose over the course of the novel, and how does she lose each of these loved ones? What fear does this create in her? Discuss in a paragraph how her relationship with Oskar allows her to continue on in the face of heartbreak and loneliness. Who returns to her in the end of the novel, and how does she react?

Essay Topic 3

The plot of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is riddled with absent fathers. Write an essay about the prevalence of absent father figures, focusing on the primary father-son relationship in each othe two primary story-lines. What is the reason for each father's absence? How does each father communicate with his estranged son on a daily basis without actually doing so? In summation, discuss what happens when the estranged father figure of one narrative meets the orphaned son of the other. How do they interact?

(see the answer keys)

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