View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who owns cattle a town away from Nora and is very wealthy and influential?

2. Who runs the company Lurie is traveling with?

3. What does Nora find has happened at The Sentinel office when she visits it in town?

4. What does Lurie remember telling the writer from Nevada about mounting a camel?

5. Who does Nora talk to only in her mind?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Toby injure his eye?

2. In Part I, what does Lurie wish he could remember his father talking about more than anything else?

3. What power does Josie claim to have that Nora is skeptical about?

4. Why does Nora choose to sign her rebuttal letter to The Sentinel from Ellen Francis?

5. What errand is Emmett very late returning from in Part II?

6. What was Hobb's special skill, even as a child?

7. Who is the voice Nora often hears and has silent conversations with?

8. What does Lurie steal on the ship he takes cover on whose owner he later bumps into in Part I?

9. What kind of creature does Lurie see for the first time when he steals away on the ship in Part II?

10. How does Lurie acquire the last name of Mattie?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Why do you think Nora is much more open to the idea that Josie's ability to communicate with the spirit world could be legitimate and true at the end of the novel than she is at the beginning? Write an essay explaining your answer, citing specific references to the text to support your answers.

Essay Topic 2

In the section titled Afternoon, what do you think Obreht is trying to convey through Lurie's conversations with the writer, who painstakingly records Lurie's stories but dies shortly thereafter? Write an essay explaining your answer.

Essay Topic 3

What seems to bother Nora the most when she finds out her eldest son Rob and Josie are lovers? What kind of a life does she envision for them as they grow older? Write an essay explaining your answer.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 656 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample