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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 ambitions did Jon Krakauer's father have for all of his children?
(a) That they would excell in sports.
(b) That they would all enter the family business.
(c) That they would leave home and be on their own after high school.
(d) That they would attend Ivy League schools.

2. What was in the McCandless house that speaks to the feelings of Walt and Billie McCandless toward Chris?
(a) No photos of Chris in the house.
(b) All of Chris's track trophies lined up on the mantle.
(c) A photo memorial to Chris on the dining room table.
(d) Clippings of newspaper articles and magazine stories about Chris.

3. What is so poignant about the final photograph Chris took of himself holding his good-bye note?
(a) It is blurry because he was too weak to hold the camera steady.
(b) His emaciated frame contrasts with the smile on his face.
(c) The end of his good-bye note says he will see everyone in a month.
(d) He doesn't realize that he is holding the note upside down.

4. What did Walt leave in the bus?
(a) A memorial plaque.
(b) A flashlight and some batteries.
(c) An emergency radio operated by a hand crank.
(d) A book about edible plants in the area.

5. What did the bones outside the bus reveal?
(a) That the animal Chris killed had been eaten by vultures.
(b) That Chris had been unable to kill edible animals.
(c) What Chris thought was a moose was actually caribou.
(d) That the bus had been attacked by wolves.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Carine recall that Chris loved so much?

2. What does Krakauer think actually killed Chris?

3. August 12, Chris left the bus to forage for berries. What did the note he left on the door say?

4. When Krakauer reached an impassable place on the mountain, what did he do?

5. When Krakauer was at the mountain he came to climb, what enhanced his emotions?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did Chris manage the last leg of his trip into Fairbanks?

2. Who was Sam McCandless, and why was he the one to notify Chris's parents?

3. What discovery did Chris make the summer after his freshman year in college that drove a deeper wedge between him and his father?

4. How was Krakauer's Alaska experience different from Chris's?

5. As Krakauer, visiting the site, stood on the banks of the raging Teklanika River, what advantage did he have that Chris did not have?

6. What kind of work made Walt McCandless such a success?

7. Carine knew that Chris was leaving but she didn't know where he was going. Why?

8. What is so unusual about Chris's never seeing another human being while he was camped at the bus?

9. In Chris's journal, what did he think was happening to him?

10. What defense does Krakauer make of Chris's ability to survive in the wild?

(see the answer keys)

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