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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 kind of shoes does Ford buy himself?

2. What does Old Thrashbarg shout after Ford and Arthur as they ride off?

3. Why is it difficult to tell Random's age?

4. After Ford and Arthur ride through to the desert world, what does Ford tell Arthur to do?

5. What creates the signal that Ford homes in on to arrive at the planet?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why is Ford worried about the new Guide?

2. How does the interview between Tricia and Random go?

3. What sort of review does Ford give the Bar & Grill?

4. How does Ford suggest getting off Arthur's new home planet?

5. How was Ford saved the second time he jumped out the window of the Guide building?

6. What does the new Guide demonstrate with a laser and the rain?

7. Why doesn't Arthur's watch tell the right time?

8. What does Tricia learn when she calls her television station from the editing booth?

9. What does Random find at the crash site?

10. Why is Tricia upset by the video footage she has brought back from her trip into space?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss social satire in the novel.

1) How does the Guide and its offices serve as social satire? How does it represent large corporations in the real world? How does the story of the failed air control system for offices compare to this satire, as a social satire of technology?

2) How do the Vogons function as social satire? What types of people and organizations do they satire? How is bureaucracy depicted?

3) What other elements of social satire are present in the novel?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss identity in the novel.

1) How do Tricia and Trillian, as two aspects of the same person, exemplify what creates identity?

2) How does Random, as a person who feels without an identity, exemplify what creates identity?

3) What does limited perspective have to do with identity? How does a sense of belonging and a place in the universe relate to identity?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the role of fate and free will in the novel.

1) Do the characters in the novel have free will? Do their circumstances and personalities force them into specific roles and choices?

2) Does the existence of the new Guide eliminate free will?

3) How does the existence of multiple dimensions, representing different potential realities, relate to fate and free will? If all possibilities exist, is there any real choice or free will?

(see the answer keys)

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