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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. What did Pesniakevich's mother own in Minsk? ("Prosthetic Appliances.")

2. At the beginning of "In The Night," what had just ended?

3. Who was denied hot food for refusing to give up his prosthetic arm?

4. What did the sectarian need his extra portion of food to do? ("Quiet.")

5. What did the narrator say that he refused to listen to? ("Sententious.")

Short Essay Questions

1. What happened to Grigoriev and Potashnikov after the foreman found out that they were not carpenters?

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

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

4. Given that convicts were not allowed to see a thermometer, how did they know when temperatures reached 60 degrees below zero in "Carpenters"?

5. What plans did Bagretsov have for the underwear that he took off of the corpse?

6. What did the narrator in "A Pushover Job" and his companion do to full-fill their quota of pine needles?

7. What "piece of meat" did Golubev offer up in sacrifice? ("A Piece of Meat.")

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

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

10. Why did Garkunov die at the end of "On Tick"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Many time throughout the collection of stories, Shalamov detailed the loss of human emotions. What human emotions were laborers in Kolyma able to keep? What human emotions did the men tend to lose forever? Why was this as it was?

Essay Topic 2

The harshness of work in the camps was described through the severe actions that convicts would go to to avoid it. Describe three examples where convicts sacrificed themselves, in one way or another, to avoid work in the camps.

Essay Topic 3

The theme of survival was important in the text. Discuss the different aspects of survival as depicted throughout the text. What were the different aspects of survival? What did it mean to survive? Why were there different understandings of this term?

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