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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 the chief, in "Chief of Political Control," refuse in place of doing business first?

2. What kind of injection did the chief in "Chief of Political Control" need?

3. At the end of "Esperanto," what did Skoroseev ask of the narrator after he had spent the night in his (Skoroseev's) home?

4. What number gang was the director questioning in "The Injector"?

5. What were "unfortunate ones" made to think that machine grease was? ("Land-Lease.")

Short Essay Questions

1. Why did the narrator in "My First Tooth" state that it was easier to bear something after you write it down? ("My First Tooth.")

2. According to the narrator in "The Lawyer's Plot," what were the three ways out of the mine?

3. What happened at the end of "Esperanto" to the narrator"?

4. Why was Golubev called to Stukov's home in "Magic"?

5. What bliss did the narrator find while in Irkutsk? ("The Train.")

6. Why was the narrator afraid to get off of the train at any station other than the Moscow station? ("The Train.")

7. Why did the narrator decide that he had not been lucky in getting called to Romanov's home? ("The Lawyer's Plot.")

8. What about the Senior Supervisor-Ministry of Internal Affairs' name impressed the narrator in "The Lawyer's Plot"?

9. How did the narrator come to remember the story "Esperanto"?

10. What "magical powers" did Stukov have? ("Magic")

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

As detailed by the text, men were moved constantly and consistently in and out of different work houses. This change set up for many of the men to find themselves separated from human companionship. In what ways did the text show the breakdown of relationships based upon the experiences in Kolyma?

Essay Topic 2

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 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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This section contains 803 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample