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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) Life
(b) Mankind
(c) Breath
(d) The first man

2. What does Ishmael say has been the result of the Takers’ interpretation of the law he and the narrator discuss in Chapter 8?
(a) To establish one or two just civilizations
(b) To bring the benefits of civilization to more people than ever
(c) To produce a paradise on earth
(d) To bring the world to its knees

3. What is the big change that has taken place at the beginning of Chapter 9?
(a) Ishmael is on the narrator’s side of the glass
(b) Ishmael has been evicted
(c) Ishmael and the narrator meet in a new location
(d) Ishmael is speaking aloud

4. How does the narrator characterize Art Owens?
(a) A sly, backhanded snake
(b) An energetic cannonball of a man
(c) A weary gentleman
(d) A hard-eyed black man

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 he is willing to give up when the collapse comes
(c) What the law is that has been working from the beginning of time
(d) What the end result of the Takers’ civilization will be

6. What does the narrator say is the first thing that the Takers do that no one else in nature does?
(a) Execute murderers
(b) Exterminate competitors
(c) Rationalize their murder
(d) Claim territory for themselves

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

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

9. What does the narrator find when he returns to the office building in Chapter 10 after several days away from Ishmael?
(a) Ishmael will not talk to him
(b) Ishmael is sick
(c) Ishmael has died
(d) Ishmael has been evicted

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

11. When does Ishmael say the event he put at 8,000 B.C. on his timeline ended?
(a) 2,000 A.D.
(b) 500 B.C.
(c) 5,000 B.C.
(d) He says that it has not ended yet

12. What does the law Ishmael believes the narartor is looking for in Chapter 8 prevent?
(a) Single-species dominance
(b) Civilization
(c) Injustice
(d) A howling chaos

13. What is Art Owens’ negotiating style?
(a) He is somewhat flexible
(b) He does not budge at all
(c) He is hostile and suspicious, and only gives ground with a fight
(d) He is amenable to make sacrifices in order to find an agreeable proposal

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

15. 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 live in the gods’ hands
(c) Those who know good and evil
(d) Those who invent themselves

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the narrator talk to Art Owens about?

2. What keeps the narrator from returning to Ishmael the next day, after discussing Adam and Eve?

3. How does the narrator continue his dialogue with Ishmael in a new setting in Chapter 10?

4. What is the literary term for the running comparison to aeronauts?

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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