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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 does Peach say Beck's obsession with climbing was doing?

2. What was the weather like eighteen hours earlier than when the book opens?

3. How many feet above sea level was the base camp?

4. How many in Beck's group made it to the summit?

5. What did Peach not realize when someone called her and said Beck was alive?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why did Dan fly to be with Beck while Beck was in a hotel recovering?

2. Whom did Peach and her friends contact to get Beck off the mountain?

3. What did three Sherpas and Stuart Hutchinson find after they set out to locate Yasuko and Beck?

4. What happened after Mike Groom arrived?

5. What was Peach told about Beck in a phone call, and what happened just as she was relaying the news to the children?

6. Why did the search party leave Beck and Yasuko where they found them?

7. What did Beck say about a climber's drive?

8. What is the date at the opening chapter and what is Beck doing?

9. How did Beck communicate with his family during most climbs, and how did he do so on the Everest expedition?

10. What happened when the camp radioed down the mountain about Beck's arrival?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The topic of marriage is woven throughout Left for Dead. Discuss the following:

1. Discuss the attitudes toward marriage that Beck Weathers has as opposed to his wife's attitudes.

2. How much do you think Beck's depression influences his views of marriage? Discuss thoroughly using examples from the book.

3. Compare/contrast the normal American view of marriage with Beck's. How are their views similar? Different? Which views are more like your own?

Essay Topic 2

Beck was reliant on those closest to him, including Peach. He underwent physical and emotional pain as he dealt with people's reactions to his unsightly body and fought infections. He had eleven surgeries over the next year. The pain was excruciating.

1. Do you think the average person would resent his or her life becoming more difficult because of a spouse's poor choice? In other words, all of a sudden Peach is faced with having to do many tasks her husband cannot do for himself, as the the result of him being determined to climb a mountain she asked him not to climb. Use examples from the book and your own life to support your answer.

2. Humans often have a tendency to think someone deserves pain or suffering if they are the cause of their suffering. Beck chose to climb, even when his daughter and wife asked him not to do it. Does Beck deserve his suffering? Why or why not? Use examples from the book and your own life to support your answer.

3. Everyone has done something unwise and suffered the consequences of the behavior. Do you think the consequences of a bad choice is the best way for a person to grow? Why or why not? Use examples from the book and your own life to support your answer.

Essay Topic 3

Discuss one of the following:

1. Trace and analyze the theme of growth in Left for Dead. Consider the following questions as you write: What characters are most concerned with growth? Why? What are some symbols of growth? Symbols of rigidity? What characters seem rigid?

2. Trace and analyze the theme of courage in Left for Dead. Which characters struggle with this issue? Why? Which characters seem to possess courage? Why?

3. Trace and analyze the theme of death in Left for Dead. Consider the death of some of the climbers as an random act of nature and the near death of Beck as the result of poor choices.

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