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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 Ford hope to exploit about the Vogons?

2. When Arthur finds Random at his hut, what does she say to him?

3. What is the color of the eye-catching spaceship parked in front of the Bar & Grill?

4. What do the other two creatures give her?

5. How does Arthur react when Ford tells him the Guide has been bought out?

Short Essay Questions

1. How is the Earth finally destroyed?

2. Why is Random fascinated by Arthur's watch?

3. What does the man who accosts Ford and Arthur when they enter the London club say?

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

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

6. What do Ford and Arthur talk about as they ride the Perfectly Normal Beast away?

7. How does Ford get the new Guide out of the Guide offices?

8. What does Random find at the crash site?

9. How does Ford react when he first sees a pikka bird?

10. What worries Ford about what's happened during his visit to the Guide?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss communication in the novel.

1) What types of failures of communication appear in the novel? How do Ford and Arthur fail to communicate with each other?

2) How do Arthur and Random fail to communicate with each other? Why does Random have such difficulty communicating?

3) What is the relationship between differing perspectives and failed communication in the novel?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the nature of being human as it is presented in the novel.

1) How do alien races in the novel emphasize what it means to be human by being different from human beings?

2) How do alien races in the novel emphasize what it means to be human by exhibiting and exaggerating human characteristics?

3) How do Arthur, Tricia, and Random represent the human race in the novel?

Essay Topic 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

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