View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which of the following does Rushdie note Kundera ignores?

2. To which of the following does Rushdie compare himself?

3. To which of the following is the anthology dedicated?

4. Whose translation of Don Quixote does Rushdie favor?

5. To which of the following is Shakespeare’s authorship ascribed?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Rushdie note was his first attraction to Thousand Nights and One Night?

2. What does Rushdie remark the phase “so it goes” is used to euphemize?

3. What does Rushdie note struck him most on his first reading of Portnoy’s Complaint?

4. Why is Rushdie grateful for the mixed reception of his first published novel?

5. For what reason does Carlos Fuentes remark that Latin American writers hesitate to use the word “solitude”?

6. What was Rushdie’s last assignment as a student journalist?

7. What idea about Shakespeare does Rushdie ascribe to Howard Brenton?

8. What answer to the question of difficult reading does Rushdie propose?

9. What effect does Rushdie note of Romanian orphans having no access to stories?

10. What does Heraclitus’s fragment 121 say?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What does Rushdie gain from disparaging the works of other writers? That is, what effect is created by his doing so, and how does it work to the advantage of the anthology?

Essay Topic 2

Readerly attention focuses on the following passage: “I believe that the books and stories we fall in love with make us who we are, or, not to claim too much, that the act of falling in love with a book or story changes us in some way, and the beloved tale becomes a part of our picture of the world, a part of the way in which we understand things and make judgements and choices in our daily lives” (3). Does the passage bear out? What in the anthology and in your experience suggests as much? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

In the anthology, some individuals are given but one name, while others are given first- and surnames, and still others are accorded names and titles. What significance, if any, accrues to patterns of naming in the book? If no significance accrues, what purpose might be served by the patterns of naming in the book? How does Languages of Truth bear as much out?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 632 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample