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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 type of plane does Marian buy in Alaska?

2. What craft first photographs the curvature of the earth?

3. For a library in what town does Jamie accept a commission?

4. On which charge is Barclay convicted and incarcerated?

5. What is the reported first line of Carol’s book?

Short Essay Questions

1. What response does Marian give to Ruth’s question about why people in Britain do not cry?

2. What prank is Lindbergh reported to have played on a friend?

3. What reason does Marian give to Barclay for wanting to visit a nightclub?

4. What hinders Jamie’s initial search for work in Seattle?

5. What insight into fear does Hadley report having from playing Marian?

6. How does Marian handle the miner she picks up in McCarthy?

7. What reasons are given for the ATA not teaching flight by instrumentation?

8. Why does Sarah note liking Jamie’s drawings of her?

9. Why are women prohibited from flying Class VI planes?

10. Why does Jamie warn Marian away from Barclay, albeit unsuccessfully?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The two focal characters, Marian and Hadley, are made parallel in several ways, including by being orphans. How might the novel have been different had their parallelism been developed in other ways? For one such other way, what would the effects be, and why would they be those effects?

Essay Topic 2

A significant amount of readerly attention focuses on a quotation taken from Marian Graves’s logbook: “Circles are wondrous because they are endless. Anything endless is wondrous. But endlessness is torture, too. I knew the horizon could never be caught but still chased it. What I have done is foolish; I had no choice but to do it” (7). Does the novel substantiate the assertions of the quotation? How or how not?

Essay Topic 3

A lack of formal sectional division in the novel obliges a fairly arbitrary breakdown of the text for purposes of study and discussion. On what grounds might the current divisions be in place? Why and how are they appropriate to the text?

(see the answer keys)

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