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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. Which of the following countries is represented among the medical students who observe the narrator’s treatment for syphilis?

2. Which of the following does the narrator footnote as a Muslim hygienic practice?

3. What kind of gloves does the narrator wear to the emergency room?

4. Which of the following does the narrator call “the last of [his mother’s] edible pleasures” (217)?

5. Where does the narrator note having first met Jacobs?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the narrator report as shocking in his review of the transcripts of proceedings against Rind’s investment company?

2. What reasons does Moroni give to mistrust Freud? What reasons does she note to trust him?

3. What agencies does the narrator deny led to his wealth?

4. What associations does the narrator report many interlocutors who ask about his name and background have with India?

5. Why does the narrator report being initially put at ease by the Pennsylvania state trooper who pulls him over?

6. Why does the university dean on Rind’s foundation board oppose the narrator joining said board?

7. What overall project does the narrator ascribe to Rind?

8. What reasons does the narrator give for the SEC investigation of Rind’s investment company?

9. What factors does the narrator cite as having broken him out of his wealth-induced laziness and indulgence?

10. What features does the narrator initially ascribe to Rind that mark him as Pakistani, rather than Indian?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Consider the comment that “America had begun as a colony and that a colony it remained, that is, a place still defined by its plunder, where enrichment was paramount and civil order always an afterthought” (xiii). Is the comment correct? What in the novel and in experience indicates that it is / not? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 2

Consider the comment that “To admit you were wrong meant to show weakness” (11). Is the comment correct? What in the novel and in experience indicates that it is / not? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

The narrator remarks that “Serious money was the only path to liberation from the indentured servitude of twenty-first-century lower- and middle-class American life” (153). Does the novel support or deny the remark? What in the text suggests it does or does not? How?

(see the answer keys)

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