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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. What does Italian physicist Evangelista Torricelli discover?

2. Who takes over the scandal-ridden weather service in 1887?

3. What year is London hit with a devastating cyclone?

4. Where is Isaac sent to set up a weather station in Texas?

5. How many cyclones has Captain Halsey survived?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. What is Galveston like in 1900?

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

5. What is unusual about the summer of 1900 across the world?

6. How did Isaac meet his wife?

7. How does Larson describe the center of a hurricane?

8. How was weather recorded before the creation of the weather service?

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

10. What does Isaac compare the feeling to that he has on the night before the hurricane?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In Part II, Larson quotes a conversation between Colonel Dunwoody and Julio Jover of the Belen College Observatory. The final sentence of the conversation is Colonel Dunwoody saying, "It cannot be; no cyclone ever can move from Florida to Galveston." How is this conversation not only emblematic of the politics of the weather services but also of the cost of America's arrogance?

Essay Topic 2

What is the true "Law of Storms" as it pertains to the Galveston hurricane?

Essay Topic 3

What price is to be paid for man's arrogance gained through technological advances? How is Isaac's Storm a cautionary tale about man's sense of technological power over nature? How likely will this theme continue long into the future of man?

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This section contains 773 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample