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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. Over which desert is the station noted to pass?

2. Approximately how many miles above the earth is the station?

3. What does Pietro assert is the subject of Las Meninas?

4. To which of the following is cosmic radiation compared?

5. Where will the ashes of Chie’s mother be spread?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why are the station crew glad surveillance is stopped at night?

2. Why do the station crew eschew reading the news?

3. How does Anton realize his marriage is loveless?

4. Why do the station crew disregard the signs restricting toilet use on the station?

5. Why is the southern tip of Spain reflective?

6. Why are there signs restricting toilet use on the station?

7. Why does the nighttime view of the earth attract the station crew’s attention?

8. What does Chie note as the most common fate of dagashiya?

9. What does the novel posit as the fate of the earth?

10. What does Pietro note the fisherman’s children know that their parents do not know or do not care to know?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Ultimately, what does the novel say about interpreting works of art, irrespective of medium? What in the text says as much? How does the text say it?

Essay Topic 2

How does Orbital consider the tension between restraint and freedom? That is, what does the novel say about how the concepts interact with one another? What in the text does the saying, and how does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

Sources attest to the presence of Orbital on best-seller lists. Assuming that sales figures reflect popularity, what accounts for the popularity of the novel? How does it do so?

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