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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 is the only thing that Falcon is concerned with?

2. While in Falcon's cabin after the fight on deck, what does Ngonyama tell the rest of the Allmuseri?

3. What crime does Squibb get caught committing on board the ship?

4. After Rutherford finishes telling Squibb about Reverend Chandler's death, what illness does he say that Baleka seems to have?

5. What does Rutherford admit about his own physical condition?

Short Essay Questions

1. One night, Cringle tells Rutherford about his father. How does Cringle describe his father's attitude towards money and the rich?

2. Diamelo makes up many new rules that favor the Allmuseri and to which the Americans must submit. What winds up being the only one of these rules that is actually followed?

3. When Cringle decides to begin the mutiny and sends Rutherford to Falcon's cabin, what happens to Fletcher?

4. Rutherford tells Squibb about his brother and master. What reason does he give for Rev. Chandler deciding to keep him and Jackson, his brother, after Chandler inherited them from their father?

5. Why do the Allmuseri spit at visitors' feet?

6. Rutherford begins daydreaming about Isadora. What does he see himself doing in his daydream?

7. After Rutherford finishes his dinner conversation with Falcon and returns to the deck, he observes Meadows wearing various people's clothes and imitating them while beating the dogs. Why is he doing this?

8. What is Falcon's motive for bringing the Allmuseri god on board?

9. After Rutherford is thrown into the water, he sees the Allmuseri grabbing onto wood and debris to stay afloat; however, they are still very close to the ship. What happens to nearly all of the Allmuseri when the ship goes below the surface?

10. After the ceremony the Allmuseri hold to cleanse the ship after the uprising, what does Ngonyama send Rutherford to do?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Using the text as backup, analyze how Cringle's lifelong quest to please his father has destroyed him emotionally and psychologically, and explain how Cringle's physical condition in Entry 7 is used by the author to symbolize his internal devastation.

Essay Topic 2

Slavery also figured highly in the lives of all characters in Middle Passage, not just in the lives of the Allmuseri. Using the text as your backup, choose one of the following characters, and explain how and by what he or she was enslaved.

1) Captain Falcon

2) Rutherford

3) Isadora

4) Zeringue

5) Squibb

6) Nathaniel Meadows

Essay Topic 3

Using the text as backup, compare and contrast Rutherford's and Captain Falcon's personalities, particularly their individual approaches towards honesty and ability to trust, and explain how the relationship that develops between them plays a role in the development of the novel.

(see the answer keys)

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