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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. How did John spend his time in eighth grade?

2. What does John point out to Patricia about Kathy?

3. What comes out about Sorcerer in testimony during the court martial?

4. What does Claude Rasmussen tell John on the radio?

5. What does John tell Claude Rasmussen in response?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the night in Las Vegas when John found Kathy and Tony Carbo gambling.

2. What did Tony Carbo tell John and Kathy on the night of the election?

3. What do we know for sure at the end of the book?

4. What is the narrator's last hypothesis?

5. What does sorcerer admit to in the evidence from the court martial hearings?

6. Describe the scene the soldiers encountered when they were ordered back to Thuan Yen.

7. Describe John's departure from Lake of the Woods.

8. What does Arthur Lux tell John when John goes into town to meet Patricia?

9. Describe the relationship between John and Vinny Pearson in Chapter 23, "Where They Looked".

10. What did John and Kathy do after John gave his concession speech on election night?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is Tim O'Brien doing with the form of the novel by refusing to answer the question of Kathy's disappearance? How is 'In the Lake of the Woods' different from the 'typical' novel? What is the benefit of that difference? What are the drawbacks?

Essay Topic 2

What questions are we really asking when we ask what happened to Kathy? What is this book really about, at bottom?

Essay Topic 3

To what degree is this book internally consistent? How much does it follow the rules it lays out for its own unfolding?

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