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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. Which of the following mimics Bob Dylan at the Naples open mic?

2. What kind of shoe does Cyrus wear?

3. From where does Edgar come?

4. On what day does Orkideh’s final installation open?

5. Where is Cyrus injured by an axe?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the nature of Orkideh’s final installation?

2. How had Ali tried to stop Cyrus sucking his thumb?

3. What is the nature of Cyrus’s work at the hospital?

4. Why does Ali like Westerns?

5. Why does Cyrus find American hookah bars suspect?

6. Why does Ali caution Cyrus against admitting to his Iranian origin?

7. Why is an empty bottle a source of comfort for an airline traveler?

8. What is meant in the novel by Iranian ugliness?

9. How does Cyrus quit smoking?

10. Why is there a bounty for Cyrus’s mother?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Consider the ending of the novel. Does it satisfy? How or how not?

Essay Topic 2

To what other writer’s work in your experience does Akbar’s seem most similar? What makes the writers similar? What differentiates them? Overall, which do you regard as doing better at the craft of writing, and why?

Essay Topic 3

A lack of formal sectional division in the novel obliges a fairly arbitrary breakdown of the text for purposes of study and discussion. On what grounds might the current divisions be in place? Why and how are they appropriate to the text?

(see the answer keys)

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