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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is ironic about Krakauer's descriptions of Walt McCandless and that of his rebellious son, Chris?
(a) Walt had always been kind and generous but Chris had always been aloof.
(b) Krakauer describes Chris and Walt McCandless as being very similar, both stubborn and temperamental individuals.
(c) Walt and Chris believe in the same socialistic things.
(d) Chris was a carbon copy of his father when he was that age.

2. Why did Chris decide to go to San Diego?
(a) To get a suntan at the beach before heading North.
(b) To find work for money for his Alaskan trip.
(c) To catch a train to Alaska.
(d) To catch a steamer going up the coast to Alaska.

3. What problem did the authorities have after removing Chris's body?
(a) Finding enough tissue to autopsy.
(b) Keeping the body frozen.
(c) Identifying him.
(d) Getting the body to Fairbanks.

4. What event happened in April 1992 that prompted the writing of Into The Wild?
(a) Christopher McCandless hitchhiked to Alaska and entered the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley and four months later, a party of hunters found his body.
(b) There was a volcano that killed a young man named Christopher McCandless.
(c) Christopher McCandless disappeared and no one ever knew what happened to him.
(d) An 80-year-old man called OUTSIDE Magazine to tell them about Chris McCandless.

5. What is Krakauer's message by using the details of the moose hunter's trip to the bus?
(a) He shows that even seasoned hunters must contend with the harsh elements of the northwest.
(b) He breaks up the story to keep it interesting.
(c) It is how he explains the difficulty in getting to the place where Chris died.
(d) He shows more about how beautiful the landscape is in that place.

Short Answer Questions

1. During an interview with Krakauer, what does Westerberg say about Chris?

2. What did Butch Killian want to do when he arrived on the bus scene where Chris had died?

3. What effect had Chris had on Ronald Franz?

4. How had Chris already been separating himself from his family?

5. What group of Irish aesthetics does Krakauer include in Chapter 9?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the evidence at the opening of Chapter 1 that indicates Chris might have had a premonition about his death.

2. Why was there a break in Chris's journal entries after he left Las Vegas in 1991?

3. How does Krakauer rebut the idea that Chris was a reckless idiot, a wacko, a narcissist?

4. How abrupt was Chris's separation from his family?

5. What two things was Gallien able to provide the Alaska authorities?

6. When hunters discovered Chris's body in September of 1992, what did they decide to do?

7. Describe Westerberg's comments to Krakauer two months after Chris died.

8. What happened to Chris's plan to paddle a canoe from Arizona to the Gulf of California?

9. What is a literary parallel between Chris and Ruess?

10. Describe Jim Gallien's difficulty contacting the Alaska state troopers.

(see the answer keys)

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