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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 city are the three refugee women in the cart from?

2. What does Paul Berlin think about during the Chapter 25 mountain march?

3. What does Cacciato leave as a booby trap for Third Squad in this chapter?

4. Which of the following characters does not go the MARS system to call home in Chapter 24?

5. How is Cacciato dressed when Paul Berlin spots him in Chapter 18?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why can the Mayor of Ovissil not read Paul Berlin's history?

2. How does Cacciato toy with the Third Squad in this chapter?

3. Why does Third Squad need to leave Delhi in Chapter 26?

4. How does Third Squad end up on a cart with three Vietnamese women in Chapter 6?

5. Why does the Squad take a vote on whether to continue pursuing Cacciato in Chapter 3?

6. What surprise announcement does the Lieutenant make to Third Squad in Chapter 26?

7. Why do living circumstances become awkward for Third Squad in Delhi?

8. What are Sidney Martin's values regarding war as described in Chapter 25?

9. Describe Lieutenant Corson.

10. What decision does Paul Berlin make at the observation tower in Chapter 8?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay detailing how Third Squad is a microcosm for the functional military as a whole, focusing on three allegorical characters and how the rest of the Squad relates to them:

Part 1) Lieutenant Sidney Martin represents the unquestioned mission-focused structure of the military. How is his conception of Vietnam dangerous to his men and incompatible with reality? How does Third Squad respond to him?

Part 2) How Oscar Johnson a response to Sidney Martin? Does he represent unofficial standard operating procedure? In what ways is he the most powerful figure in Third Squad as a result?

Part 3) If Martin and Johnson represent the most unyielding of war, how does Doc Peret represent the flexible compassion that combat engenders? What actions does he take that illustrate this?

Essay Topic 2

There are two Paul Berlins in Going After Cacciato: the weak-willed bad soldier of the real chapters, and the one that presses onward and gets the girl in the Cacciato story. Write an essay comparing these two. How does the protagonist of the novel reinvent himself in half the chapters? How does this reinvention help him deal with his desperate shortcomings in the other half of the novel? TO what extent is the second Paul Berlin a defense for the first?

Essay Topic 3

In the character of Li Van Hgoc, O'Brien has created a complex portrait of the enemy for Third Squad to encounter, both a victim and perpetrator of Viet Cong cruelty.

Write an essay analyzing Li Van Hgoc and what O'Brien is saying about the nature of oppressive governance. How is Li Van Hgoc a threat to the safety of Third Squad, and why is he so kind and forthcoming? How does his faith illustrate the collective fate of the Vietnamese people in this cruel war?

(see the answer keys)

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