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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. When does Ben first meet Jakob and Michaela?
(a) Michaela's birthday party.
(b) Jakob's book signing.
(c) Irena's birthday party.
(d) A memorial service for Athos.

2. Of what does being moral consist in the time of the Holocaust?
(a) The tiniest acts.
(b) The knowledge of what is happening and changing.
(c) The greatest acts.
(d) Refusing to participate in evil.

3. What helps Ben understand his nightmares?
(a) Visiting Treblinka.
(b) Studying the Holocaust.
(c) Reading Jakob Beer.
(d) His grandmother's letters.

4. Upon what does Jakob sometimes lecture?
(a) The Holocaust.
(b) Athos' work.
(c) Living while the dead are inside you.
(d) Living with grief.

5. How does Jakob feel when he returns to Greece?
(a) As if he were home.
(b) Wrong.
(c) Happy.
(d) Disoriented.

6. What volume does Jakob select to read himself to sleep?
(a) Genesis.
(b) Psalms.
(c) The Stranger.
(d) The Iliad.

7. What does Ben imagine happening to Petra as a child?
(a) Being frozen in a pose of beauty.
(b) Being imprinted by lightning.
(c) He cannot imagine her as a child.
(d) Being made to sit in the corner to dampen down her sensuality.

8. What does Ben's father do for a living?
(a) Physician.
(b) Lawyer.
(c) Music conductor.
(d) Train conductor.

9. What do Ben and Petra discover when they pull down the covers on Jakob's bed?
(a) A note from Jakob to Bella.
(b) A handwritten group of poems no one has seen.
(c) A note from Michaela to her brother.
(d) A note from Michaela to Jakob.

10. What opinion does Jakob offer on the issue about which Naomi and Ben are fighting?
(a) He thinks a compromise is fairly easy.
(b) He supports Ben.
(c) He supports Naomi.
(d) He has no opinion.

11. What does the rabbi say when passengers ask his forgiveness?
(a) They never ask forgiveness of the rabbi.
(b) He offers forgiveness with stipulations.
(c) He offers forgiveness freely.
(d) He cannot give it as it was the man on the train who they ridiculed.

12. How does Jakob's home influence Jakob?
(a) It gives him a feeling of safety to work.
(b) It gives him a belief in the future.
(c) It gives him a feeling of belonging.
(d) It gives him the confidence to write Groundwork.

13. In what color can a Polish painter Jakob meets not paint?
(a) Red.
(b) Green.
(c) Blue.
(d) Yellow.

14. What do Ben and Petra do inside of getting into the bed?
(a) Dress and go to dinner.
(b) Make love in the sunroom.
(c) Make love in the gardens.
(d) Make love on the floor.

15. How does Jakob feel in Greece?
(a) At home and forever a stranger.
(b) A pariah.
(c) Completely at home.
(d) A prodigal son.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Jakob think Bella wants to do for him?

2. Who are Yoshi and Tomas?

3. What is possible with recorded history?

4. When are Ben's parents liberated from a concentration camp?

5. What is the moral of the parable about the rabbi?

(see the answer keys)

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