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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 has killed most of the Martians?

2. What does Pikes substitute for Garrett after he is killed?

3. Where do Sam and his wife Elma open their shop?

4. What surprise do Sam and Elma find in the rear seat of their own sand ship?

5. What is reported to have happened to a man named Nomland who lived near the canal?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Stendahl reply when asked what he is planning to do with the house?

2. What leads Elma, Sam's wife, to tell him that it might be another million years until Sam has a customer at his hotdog stand?

3. How do the people on Earth send messages to the people on Mars and what message repeats constantly?

4. What do the new inhabitants of Mars call the elderly people who have begun to come to Mars?

5. What happens to the boys when they return to their homes after playing the sick game with the dead Martians?

6. Why does Walter Gripp suddenly try calling the largest beauty salon on Mars?

7. Why does Hathaway believe he and his family are going to be rescued and how long as he been waiting to be rescued?

8. Why do Sam and his wife escape into the sand ship and what leads them to return to their hotdog stand?

9. Why do the owner of the luggage store and Father Peregrine believe that people will no longer be coming to Mars?

10. How does the author let the reader know that the family that once lived in the autonomously run house has been killed in the atomic blast?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How does the colonization of Mars change throughout the novel? Do you believe the changes represent a circle? In what way or why not?

Essay Topic 2

How is the theme of racism described in this novel? Do you believe the author is providing a realistic picture of racism by his descriptions within the chapter? Why or why not?

Essay Topic 3

Many of the events within this novel are disturbing to the reader. Do you believe this was the intention of the author? Why or why not? Why would an author intentionally include disturbing events?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 781 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample