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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 men were standing in the corridor awaiting a strip search? ("Prosthetic Appliances.")

2. What are the bathhouse sessions referred to in "In the Bathhouse"?

3. What prints did the men in "Dry Rations" follow to get to the spring?

4. What did the narrator say "materialized out of nowhere"? ("Sententious.")

5. According to Merzlakov, who were the first to die in the camps?

Short Essay Questions

1. What prosthetics were collected by the guards in "Prosthetic Appliances"?

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

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

4. How did the story "Sententious" end?

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

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

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

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

9. Why did Merzlakov fake a back injury in "Shock Therapy"?

10. What did the extra food give the sectarian the energy to do in "Quiet"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Describe the impact that the text had on you. Did you feel as though the text was a stretch of the truth? Did you feel as though the information given by the author was truthful and realistic? Support your focus with textual evidence.

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

Magic seemed to be the only way that some men made it out of the camps of Kolyma alive. Discuss three examples throughout the text where "magic" seemed to be responsible for survival. (Think of how "magic" was depicted in the story "Magic" to help answer this question.)

(see the answer keys)

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