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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where is Ishmael’s reference to the Second Murderer drawn from?

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

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

4. Why is Ishmael reticent about telling the narrator what he wants to know in Chapter 11?

5. What does Ishmael say the Takers repudiated when they split from the Leavers?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the narrator say he would do to figure out the fundamental law of the community Ishmael describes?

2. What keeps the narrator from returning to the office building for a few days?

3. What reading does Ishmael give the Bible story of Cain and Abel?

4. What are the three things that Takers do that nothing else in nature does?

5. What argument does the narrator offer for why the Takers’ culture is superior to the Leavers’?

6. Where has Ishmael gone when the narrator shows up again at the office building, and how does the narrator reconnect with him?

7. The narrator says that he wants to know the Leavers’ story so he can stop the destruction of the Takers’ story. Why does Ishmael say this is insufficient?

8. How does Ishmael characterize the experiment that is modern civilization?

9. What are the three tricks Ishmael says the gods played on the Takers?

10. What does the narrator say is the consequence of the Takers’ culture?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the outcome of the dialogue between Ishmael and the narrator? What influence has the book had on American or western culture? What influence does it have in your reading? How might this book change the story you are enacting?

Essay Topic 2

Evaluate your own reading of Ishmael—did you resist it, or were you compelled by the story? What does your reading tell you about yourself and your interests? Use specific examples from the book to describe yourself as a reader.

Essay Topic 3

When the narrator tells Ishmael that he has a question, Ishmael says that asking questions is what the narrator is there for. How seriously is this statement intended, do you think? Is that the narrator’s primary role—asking questions to elicit Ishmael’s stories—or does he have other purposes that are more important than that?

(see the answer keys)

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