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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 which of the following does Shaun recall hearing gibbons?

2. Over which of the following is the station noted to pass?

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

4. In what shape is the whistle the fisherman’s children give Pietro for his own child?

5. Which of the following does the novel juxtapose with hope?

Short Essay Questions

1. To what does Roman ascribe the feeling of déjà vu station crew have for spacewalking?

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

3. Why had Nell’s husband sent her food?

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

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

6. Why do the station crew turn somersaults?

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

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

9. What is the station crew’s reaction to the realization that they are, at root, data for future missions?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Consider Shaun’s discussion of the future of humanity in Orbit 11. Is he right? What in the text and in experience lead you to believe as much? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 2

Conversely, given demonstrated efforts toward censorship in a number of countries, what would likely prompt bans of Orbital? By which groups? Why?

Essay Topic 3

The novel makes a point of noting many, many physical locations as the space station passes over them. What effect does that geographic litany have on the text, and how does that effect manifest? That is, what is the novel doing when it lists so many locations, and how is it doing so?

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This section contains 596 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample