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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 11.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Ishmael say, in Chapter 2, about the path he will take the narrator on?
(a) He need not remember the route
(b) Every step will correspond with a mystical experience
(c) He should pay careful attention to the route they will take
(d) There is no going back once you start

2. In Chapter 6, Ishmael says that the narrator’s account of man’s progress stopped being applicable—how long ago?
(a) 100-120 years
(b) 80-90 years
(c) 150-200 years
(d) 30-40 years

3. Where is Ishmael’s reference to the Second Murderer drawn from?
(a) Mamet’s Oleanna
(b) Homer’s The Iliad
(c) Plato’s Republic
(d) Shakespeare’s Macbeth

4. How does Ishmael characterize man’s progress, once he discovered agriculture?
(a) Slow, till he learned how to navigate the ocean
(b) Fits and starts
(c) Meteoric
(d) Plodding

5. How does Ishmael characterize the notion that agriculture started in the Fertile Crescent?
(a) He says that it is subject to much debate
(b) He says that it has not been proved yet
(c) He says that it is undisputed
(d) He says that it is an old hat

Short Answer Questions

1. What has the narrator’s coldness become, now that he mentions it to Ishmael a second time, at the end of Chapter 5?

2. How does Ishmael characterize the law the narrator is looking for?

3. What does Ishmael say is ironic about the story the Takers adopted about two thousand years ago?

4. When does Ishmael say that human history began?

5. What does Ishmael ask the narrator to leave and come back with in Chapter 11?

(see the answer key)

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