View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does the clerk at the post office share with Julius in Chapter 16?
(a) Some of his poetry.
(b) Insights about the news.
(c) Words of wisdom from Africa.
(d) Some of his tea.

2. When Julius sees a police officer’ with a handgun in his travels, what does he say he envies about the gun?
(a) Its unaccountability.
(b) Its lack of ambiguity.
(c) Its murderousness.
(d) Its passivity.

3. What does Julius say about Moji’s beauty, during the picnic in Central Park?
(a) That it has the effect of stopping him in his tracks.
(b) That it is unique.
(c) That it does not meet his expectations.
(d) That it is staggering.

4. How many times does Julius try his PIN in various cash machines before he gives up in Chapter 13?
(a) Two or three.
(b) Six or eight.
(c) Five.
(d) A dozen.

5. Whose obituary do the street performers make Julius think of?
(a) M.’s.
(b) His father’s.
(c) His oma’s.
(d) V.’s.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the state of Dr. Saito’s mind when Julius goes to visit him in Chapter 15?

2. How many people stayed overnight at John Musson’s apartment after his party?

3. While Julius watches the snowflakes come down after meeting with his accountant in Chapter 13, he feels a furious sense of what?

4. What does Julius say he is more likely to do in the months of March, April and May?

5. What does Dr. Saito die of?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is it that Julius says cut him to the quick when he was talking with Dr. Maillotte over dinner?

2. What does Julius know about Dr. Saito’s relationship history, and how does he know it?

3. What does the monument to the negro burial ground make Julius think about the reality of people in the past?

4. What is the postcard Julius keeps on the corkboard behind his desk?

5. What experience does Julius have in Chinatown, that gives him the “disorientation and bliss” of living in his childhood self again?

6. How does the model of New York from the 1964 World’s Fair serve as a metaphor for the book?

7. What is the vision Julius has while he is sitting in the park, watching the starlings?

8. How does Julius respond when his friend’s girlfriend Lise-Anne asks him about the most humorous cases he had seen among the mentally ill?

9. How does Julius say that he reacted when he saved the boy’s life who had been about to drown?

10. What was the last time before his fathers funeral that Julius says that he had seen a dead body?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,154 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample