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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. How many axe handles were the men in "Carpenters" required to make every day?

2. What was the only way that prisoners could stand by the stove in "Quiet"?

3. What was the narrator sitting by at the opening of "The Snake Charmer"?

4. Whose job was it to run the bathhouse and disinfect clothes at the work camps?

5. What work gang was never worried about in regard to running away? ("Major Pugachov's Last Battle.")

Short Essay Questions

1. Why did the narrator state that love was the hardest emotion to return to convicts? ("Sententious.")

2. How did Platonov, in "The Snake Charmer," die?

3. What was the "circle" that was created regarding the relationship between work and food in "Shock Therapy"?

4. What question did the new arrivals ask of the old convicts in "Major Pugachov's Last Battle"?

5. Why did the convicts that had been in the camps take their bread back to their barracks? ("Major Pugachov's Last Battle")

6. What materials were needed to make the playing cards that the men in "On Tick" used?

7. Why did Platonov decide to tell the thieves a story? ("The Snake Charmer.")

8. In the story "In The Night," how did Bagretsov cut his finger?

9. In "The Bathhouse," why was lice a relative concept to most convicts?

10. In "Sententious," who did the narrator say that he envied?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Many of the convicts in the text found truth in the saying "Desperate times bring about desperate measures." Discuss three different examples within the text that proved this statement to be true.

Essay Topic 2

The narrator in "My First Tooth" stated that "even if you can't get something published, it's easier to bear a thing if you write it down. Once you've done that, you can forget." Do you agree with the narrator's statement? Why?/Why not? What is healing about writing something down? How may it help?

Essay Topic 3

Objects from the civilian world held great value for the men of Kolyma. Discuss three objects from the civilized world, what was done to keep the object in the possession of the owner, why the owner lost the possession, and how the owner felt about their possession.

(see the answer keys)

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