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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 does John remember about the night of the boiling plants after Arthur Lux and Vinny Pearson leave?

2. When does In the Lake of the Woods begin?

3. How did John react when he and his company were caught in a firefight?

4. What has just taken place when In the Lake of the Woods begins?

5. Where did the sheriff come out to the lake from?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the narrator describe Kathy's feelings in the hypothesis in Chapter 9?

2. What sources does the narrator use, to piece together the story?

3. What is Claude Rasmussen's opinion about what happened?

4. What happens shortly after John got this letter from Kathy?

5. What does John tell Kathy in his letters from Vietnam?

6. Describe the effect of reading In the Lake of the Woods.

7. Describe John's relationship with his father.

8. What do Arthur Lux and Vinny Pearson think happened to Kathy?

9. What indication does the book give us about what really happened?

10. What do we learn about John's character from the evidence and narrative?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How realistic is this book? What parts are not believable? What leaps of faith does the author require of the reader?

Essay Topic 2

How does the narrator create a sense of certainty in a book that is ceaselessly probing into facts to get at the unwritten and unknowable truth. Is certainty relative--does it depend on your personal interpretation? Are facts knowable? Is truth simply practical? What epistemology--science of knowledge--informs 'In the Lake of the Woods'?

Essay Topic 3

How does this book create its effect on the reader? Describe in detail how Tim O'Brien uses a combination of suspense and details to draw the reader in.

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