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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Ishmael say ‘Adam’ means?
(a) The first man
(b) Life
(c) Breath
(d) Mankind

2. What method does the narrator say he would use, to deduce the laws of the group Ishmael describes in Chapter 7?
(a) Controlled experiments
(b) Library research
(c) Close observation
(d) Interviews

3. What does Ishmael say is ironic about the story the Takers adopted about two thousand years ago?
(a) It had started as a joke
(b) It had been created by their enemies
(c) It did not represent their beliefs
(d) The story did not originally have anything to do with them

4. What knowledge does Ishmael say the gods have that allows them to rule the world?
(a) Knowledge of death
(b) Knowledge of justice
(c) Knowledge of life
(d) Knowledge of good and evil

5. Why does the narrator say that he understands why Ishmael asked him to define the laws himself?
(a) Because he had to relinquish beliefs of his own, to see the laws
(b) Because if Ishmael had described them, he would not have thought them important
(c) Because Ishmael wanted to get him accustomed to doing things for himself, for when Ishmael was no longer around
(d) Because Ishmael did not want him to be reliant upon him

6. What does Ishmael say keeps nature in balance?
(a) The migration of birds and whales
(b) The cycle of the seasons
(c) The relationship between feeders and predators
(d) The process of natural selection

7. What does the narrator tell Ishmael he wants to know in Chapter 11?
(a) The Leavers’ story
(b) Where Ishmael’s other students are
(c) Where the Sokolows have been
(d) Why he decided to teach

8. What new name for the Takers do Ishmael and the narrator arrive at in their discussion in Chapter 12?
(a) Those who follow the old ways
(b) Those who know good and evil
(c) Those who live in the gods’ hands
(d) Those who invent themselves

9. What event does Ishmael put at 8,000 B.C. on his timeline?
(a) The agricultural revolution
(b) The discovery of metallurgy
(c) The beginning of written culture
(d) The beginning of conquest-based warfare

10. What is the second thing that the narrator says the Takers do, which is not done in nature?
(a) Steal other animals’ food
(b) Deny competitors access to food
(c) Sell their produce
(d) Turn killing into an abstract law

11. For whose benefit does Ishmael say the Leavers accumulate and preserve knowledge?
(a) Themselves
(b) The community of life
(c) Their food supply
(d) The creatures they are responsible for

12. What does Ishmael say is the premise of the Leavers’ story?
(a) The world belongs to man
(b) Man is his own god
(c) Man belongs to the world
(d) The gods exist to do man’s bidding

13. How does Ishmael describe civilization’s progress in Chapter 7?
(a) As a building built on water
(b) As a corpse that has been kept alive artificially
(c) As the free-fall of an aircraft that does not accord with the laws of aerodynamics
(d) As a garden that has worn out the soil

14. Why does the narrator say he feels a particular feeling after taking a few days off from his discussion with the narrator in Chapter 8?
(a) Because he does not believe that he can change anything himself
(b) Because he is seeing clearly for the first time in his life
(c) Because he is confident that he can use his new knowledge to change things
(d) Because he expects to be abandoned once he has finished Ishmael’s teachings

15. What is the literary term for the running comparison to aeronauts?
(a) Analogy
(b) Anaphora
(c) Parallel syntax
(d) Parody

Short Answer Questions

1. Where does Ishmael say, in Chapter 7, they should look for a set of laws about how to live?

2. What does Mr. Partridge tell the narrator when he inquires at the Sokolow house in Chapter 10?

3. What subsequent interruption kept the narrator from returning for another few days in Chapter 10?

4. What temptation does Ishmael say Adam succumbed to when he took the fruit from Eve in the Bible story?

5. In Chapter 12, how does Ishmael say man became man?

(see the answer keys)

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