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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. How does Ishmael describe the first farmers?
(a) Technocrats
(b) Blunderers
(c) Bureaucrats
(d) Scientists

3. What does the narrator talk to Art Owens about?
(a) Buying Ishmael
(b) Improving Ishmael’s conditions
(c) The weather
(d) Getting Ishmael a doctor

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

5. What does Ishmael say the narrator needs to tell him in Chapter 8 before the dialogue can resume?
(a) What the community is in which man is only one member among equals
(b) What the law is that has been working from the beginning of time
(c) What he is willing to give up when the collapse comes
(d) What the end result of the Takers’ civilization will be

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

7. In Chapter 11, how does Ishmael define culture?
(a) As the set of answers to a people’s most pressing questions
(b) As the total set of a people’s actions and words
(c) As the knowledge that is passed down generation to generation
(d) As the things a people cannot give up without becoming someone else

8. 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 Ishmael did not want him to be reliant upon him
(c) Because if Ishmael had described them, he would not have thought them important
(d) Because Ishmael wanted to get him accustomed to doing things for himself, for when Ishmael was no longer around

9. What does Ishmael say a community lacks, when it has lost its diversity?
(a) Survival value
(b) Checks and balances
(c) Rigidity of roles
(d) A clear purpose

10. What subsequent interruption kept the narrator from returning for another few days in Chapter 10?
(a) Laziness
(b) A work deadline
(c) A woman
(d) A medical condition

11. What knowledge do the gods discover that allows them to rule the world without being criminals or negligent?
(a) The knowledge of the future
(b) The knowledge of who shall live and who shall die
(c) The knowledge of life
(d) The knowledge of secret texts

12. What does Ishmael say ‘Eve’ means?
(a) Energy
(b) Breath
(c) Helpmeet
(d) Life

13. What is the literary term for Ishmael’s saying that he is cold?
(a) Denouement
(b) Foreshadowing
(c) Falling action
(d) Prophecy

14. Who does Ishmael say is fueling the Third World population explosion?
(a) First world farmers
(b) Women
(c) Third World farmers
(d) The World Bank

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

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Ishmael, which is NOT a ‘trick’ the gods played on the Takers?

2. What does the narrator tell Ishmael he wants to know in Chapter 11?

3. Where does the narrator reunite with Ishmael in Chapter 10?

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

5. How does Ishmael characterize the Takers’ response to the law he and the narrator discuss in Chapter 8?

(see the answer keys)

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