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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. In "The Name Means Thunder," what does Paige burn at the end of the story?

2. In "Night of the Living Rez," when David is upset about Paige, what does JP suggest they can do to make David feel better?

3. In "Safe Harbor," what is David's intent when he tells his mother that she is hallucinating?

4. In "Safe Harbor," what are the black boxes that David mentions the worker using in the beginning of the story?

5. In "The Name Means Thunder," what planet does David choose to label with an alternative name?

Short Essay Questions

1. In "The Name Means Thunder," how does Paige's window screen end up playing an important role in the plot?

2. When David is running from the police in "Earth, Speak," what help does he get from an unexpected source, and what evidence is there in the end of the story that this gesture mattered deeply to David?

3. In "Night of the Living Rez," what does David think the woman has in the Gatorade bottle, and how does he later learn what the liquid really is?

4. In "The Name Means Thunder," how do the words that David whispers to Bedogi contrast with what David is really thinking and feeling?

5. In "Earth, Speak," how does a comment from Tabitha seem paradoxical to David?

6. In "The Name Means Thunder," what is ambiguous about Bedogi's manner of death, and why?

7. In "Half-Life," how do David's mother and grandmother seem to feel about him?

8. In "Half-Life," what series of questions does David ask himself about his life?

9. In "Smokes Last," how do David and Tyson end up breaking a window?

10. In "Night of the Living Rez," what is David's rhetorical purpose in describing the details of how his mother is driving as she questions him about his father?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How does the fact of the reservation being an island relate to the Goog'ooks in the walls of David's home? What malevolent force surrounds the reservation? How does its history as a cemetery indicate that the "evil spirits" come from inside the reservation, too? How does this relate to David's situation at home? Write an essay that creates an analogy between the physical setting of the reservation itself and David's home. Analyze the thematic significance of this analogy, supporting your analysis with evidence drawn from throughout the text. Cite all quoted evidence in MLA format.

Essay Topic 2

You have already spent some time considering how the title "Half-Life" relates to the motif of sleep and unconsciousness. David is in many ways "half-alive" in this story. But the term "half-life" generally is used to refer to the decay rate of substances--radioactive elements, medications, and so on. How is this additional meaning related to David's drug-induced somnambulism? Write an essay in which you make and defend a claim about what might be "decaying" in David or in his life and show how this is related to the larger motif of "sleepwalking" through life. Support your assertions with evidence from throughout the story, citing any quoted evidence in MLA format.

Essay Topic 3

What distinction is David drawing in "Earth, Speak" when he says that his mother "spoke to to [him]--not to [his] body"? (221) How does this distinction explain why, even after he is physically cured of his methadone addiction, he returns to Ralph's sweat lodge to participate in a ceremony with Ralph? What belief about his addiction is David expressing in this story? Write an essay in which you analyze the relationship between body and mind that David is proposing in this story and how it relates to his addiction and eventual recovery. Support your assertions with evidence from throughout the story, citing any quoted evidence in MLA format.

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