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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 is Feraguto about to purchase in Chapter 44?

2. What is the only information about the Club's journey to Morelli's flat included in Chapter 113?

3. Which two Serpent Club members appear incongruously in Chapter 102?

4. Which of the following is not a topic upon which Morelli expounds in Chapter 154?

5. Where does Horacio meet Pola for the first time in Chapter 76?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the novel end?

2. Describe Manolo and Talia Traveler's lives in Buenos Aires.

3. What indiscretion does Horacio commit in Chapter 54?

4. Why are Etienne and Horacio shocked when they get to the old writers room in Chapter in 154?

5. What legal formality takes place in Chapter 51?

6. What task does Morelli give Horacio and Etienne in Chapter 154?

7. What dream does Horacio have in Chapter 123, and what does Etienne take from it?

8. In Chapter 56, how does Horacio protect himself after he kisses Talita?

9. What cold comfort does Horacio offer La Maga in Chapter 108?

10. What two meanings of the term hopscotch appear in the first book?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

HOPSCOTCH as a symbol figures into the novel in several different ways. Write an essay about the use of hopscotch as a literary device, focusing on three different uses of it in the novel?

Part 1) How does the title of the novel indicate an unorthodox way of reading it? Write a paragraph describing the table of instructions provided the reader and how it affects the reading of the novel. To what extent is the reader hopscotching when reading the text?

Part 2) At the end of Book 1, as Horacio is losing his mind and getting arrested in Paris, he begins to ruminate on the game of hopscotch. What does the game become a metaphor for in this rumination? How is this metaphor related to the early purposes of the game of hopscotch?

Part 3) Late in the novel, any reference to hopscotch indicates a loss of sanity on the part of the narrator. Write a summation essay about such references. Who is actually playing hopscotch, and how does Horacio lose grasp of this person's identity when he sees them playing?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss in an essay the virtue of empathy as it relates to Horacio. As a protagonist, does Horacio seem to have empathy for anyone? Is he essentially a selfish human being? Cite examples from his time in Paris to justify your answers to the above prompts. Discuss his evening with Berthe Trepat as a fierce determination to show empathy to another person. Why does he do this and how does it fail? In his final moment in the novel, does Horacio make a decision based on empathy for those he loves or selfishness?

Essay Topic 3

The motif of madness permeates the second book of HOPSCOTCH to the point that by the end even the reader is unsure what is real and what is not. Write an essay on the topic of madness, focusing on the character of Horacio. What begins his spiral away from sanity? How does encroaching madness manifest itself at first, and how does it accelerate when he begins to work at the mental hospital? In the end, how is Horacio unable to process reality?

(see the answer keys)

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