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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 many people does the last paragraph of "The Beach" say will die in the next twenty-four hours?

2. In what year did Galveston experience a big fire?

3. What does Italian physicist Evangelista Torricelli discover?

4. What immigrant group makes up one-third of the Galveston population in 1889?

5. Who correctly predicts the hurricane in Cuba?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does hail become an obsession of Isaac's?

2. Why is the final payment on the piano a significant accomplishment to Louisa Rollfing?

3. What did the crew of Captain William Seymour's ship experience in the eye of a storm in 1837?

4. How does Moore treat the weather forecasting being done in Cuba?

5. How did Isaac do in the initial part of his training for the weather service?

6. Why does Isaac believe that no storm could harm Galveston?

7. What does Captain J. W. Simmons of the Pensacola experience after his ship leaves Galveston the morning of the hurricane?

8. Describe the photograph taken of Isaac by New Orleans photographer.

9. What characteristics do they know in 1900 that all hurricanes have in common?

10. What kind of man does the narrator describe Isaac to be?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is both surprising and tragic about how the residents of Galveston are first unaware of the storm and then revel in its onset? At what moment does the city seem to realize that this is going to end very badly?

Essay Topic 2

How does Erik Larson present a more nuanced look at the Galveston hurricane than the one that is contained in the National Archives? What is the critical difference between the two?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the symbolic implications for the modern advances of the telegraph and the train. How are they used throughout the book?

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