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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. In "A Piece of Meat," who "offered" a "bloody sacrifice"?

2. What was a "kolymka"?

3. What did the prisoners refuse to eat in the dining hall and take back to their barracks? ("Major Pugachov's Last Battle.")

4. Who was shot in "Quiet"?

5. What did the narrator always fail to do in time for dinner? ("Sententious.")

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What decision did the men in "Dry Rations" make regarding their food?

3. Who did Gloubev recognize in the hospital as he was recovering from his appendectomy? ("A Piece of Meat.")

4. Why was the Siberian dwarf cedar called a "weatherman" by the narrator?

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

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

7. What notations did the guards, described in "Prosthetic Appliances", use to show that a convict would not receive hot food and/or bread?

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

9. Why were camp officials perplexed by the convicts avoidance of the bathhouse?

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

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 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?

Essay Topic 3

Based off of the text as a whole, describe the kind of life that a man in the Kloyma forced-labor camps lived. What did their days consist of? What were their fears? What was expected of them? How were they treated?

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