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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 Old Thrashberg say is needed to attract the attention of a Perfectly Normal Beast?

2. After Trillian left Random with Arthur, what story did she go to cover?

3. How many days are there in a year on Lamuella?

4. What do hunters have to do to kill the Perfectly Normal Beasts for food?

5. What animals do not react to the arrival of the spaceship?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

6. Describe the monument that marks the location where the species Vogon Vogonblurtus first appeared.

7. Describe how the Sandwich Maker makes a sandwich.

8. What is odd about the Perfectly Normal Beast?

9. What does the owner of the spaceship that Ford tries to buy tell him?

10. What comes out of the trees toward Random, as she goes through the woods?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Tricia and Trillian are two possible lives of one person. Discuss Tricia and Trillian in the novel.

1) How are Tricia and Trillian similar? How are they different? What does this say about the effect of external factors on personality and identity?

2) What roles do randomness and chance play in Tricia and Trillian's fate? What does this say about the nature of randomness and chance?

3) How would Tricia and Trillian react to each other if they met and got a chance to interact? What would they think of each other?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the ability to discover and perceive truth in the novel.

1) How do the limitations of knowledge and perception affect the ability to discover truth in the novel? How does it affect Tricia's ability to share her knowledge of the existence of aliens?

2) How is Ford's desire to find out the truth behind the new Guide inhibited by the limits of knowledge and perception?

3) Why are characters in the novel unwilling to try to discover truth? Why do scientists find truth muddled and confusing? Why do characters like the Lamuellans not want to delve into mysteries like the Perfectly Normal Beasts?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss chance and randomness in the novel.

1) How does chance and randomness affect the Earth and its different possibilities in different dimensions?

2) How does the existence of the new Guide destroy chance and randomness?

3) How does chance and randomness affect the characters, for good or ill, in the story?

(see the answer keys)

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