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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 Arthur Lux say about Kathy?

2. How does John describe the scene he encountered after reading Kathy's letter?

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

4. What was John's relationship with his father like?

5. What cost John the victory in the election?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Describe the difference between Arthur Lux and Vinny Pearson.

3. When did the Wades discover that the election was lost?

4. How well are John and Kathy doing, at coping with events?

5. What is the narrator's hypothesis in Chapter 14?

6. What additional information do we get about the night of the boiling plants?

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

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

9. What is the problem with the hypothesis in Chapter 14?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Make a timeline of the events described in the book, and then devise a method of indicating how the book jumps back and forth between times. What structure or pattern emerges? What is unique about this structure?

Essay Topic 2

Based on the contents of the book, describe what John's future is likely to be like. Where would he go, and what would he do, after losing radio contact? Is he done with life? Is he ripe to start over? Base your answer on evidence from the text.

Essay Topic 3

In what ways are the investigations into Kathy's disappear and the massacre at Thuan Yen parallel? In what ways are they different?

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