View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. From whose perspective does Ishmael tell a rival creation story in Chapter 4?
(a) A jellyfish
(b) Someone from another planet
(c) An indigenous person in Asia
(d) A gorilla

2. What does Ishmael say is mythical about the story the narrator tells in Chapter 3?
(a) The arrangement of the facts
(b) The chronology
(c) The implied redemption
(d) The facts themselves

3. Whose voice does Ishmael say the narrator is lulled by?
(a) Mother Culture
(b) God the Father
(c) Father Time
(d) Mother Nature

4. How does the narrator characterize the 1960s?
(a) As the time of the children’s revolt
(b) As a period of hopeless despair
(c) As the great cultural leap forward
(d) As a the time when culture was completely lost

5. What is the ‘but’ Ishmael sees in the narrator’s story: “The world was made for man to conquer, and turn into a paradise--except for what”?
(a) The natural world would not support all of men’s plans
(b) People screwed it up
(c) Wealth was never going to be distributed equitably
(d) Man was always going to be able to imagine more than he could get for himself

Short Answer Questions

1. In Chapter 4, why does the narrator say he does not display the emotion he wants when the narrator finally realizes the truth of what Ishmael has been talking about?

2. How does Ishmael characterize the people who recognized the mythology of Hitler’s rule, but went along with it anyway?

3. What does the narrator say is his first impression of Ishmael?

4. How does the narrator say, in Chapter 4, that he got himself to see the middle of the story?

5. What event does Ishmael say correlates to the birth of the Takers’ story?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the rival creation story Ishmael tells the narrator?

2. What is the ‘but’ Ishmael says is part of the narrator’s culture’s myth, and where does the ‘but’ come from?

3. How does the narrator react when Ishmael finally gets him to see that his culture’s narrative is just a myth—and what is the significance of the narrator’s response?

4. What does the sign that the narrator notices behind the gorilla say, and what does the narrator interpret it to mean?

5. What does Ishmael say is his greatest fantasy?

6. How do Ishmael and the narrator see the Takers as similar to early aeronauts?

7. Describe the man who takes Ishmael from the menagerie.

8. Why is the narrator so upset to see Ishmael’s ad in the paper?

9. What is the narrator’s creation myth?

10. What does Ishmael say will be the result, once the narrator learns to hear Mother Culture’s voice?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,064 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample