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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Why are individual burials dispensed with?
(a) The death rate is too high to keep pace.
(b) The gravediggers are threatening to go on strike.
(c) People cannot afford expensive funerals.
(d) The cemetery is full.

2. What additional friendship has Tarrou made?
(a) With Cottard.
(b)
(c) With Rambert.
(d) With Fr Paneloux.With the Prefect.

3. What makes Tarrou and Rieux very conscious of their isolation?
(a) Looking at a full moon.
(b) The view from the terrace at the asthma patient's home.
(c) The silences at night.
(d) The fact that they never get mail from the outside world.

4. How does the city government respond to looting?
(a) Martial law is imposed and shops are boarded up at night.
(b) All police leave is cancelled.
(c) Looters are shot on sight.
(d) Martial law and a curfew are imposed.

5. What does Rieux do with Grand's manuscript?
(a) He reads it and offers to find Grand a literary agent.
(b) He accidentally knocks it into the fire.
(c) He burns it, only because Grand demands it.
(d) He burns it out of spite.

Short Answer Questions

1. Having made his decision, what must Rambert now give up?

2. What is the reason for cautious optimism in the town?

3. To what does Dr. Rieux confess?

4. What does Rieux confide?

5. What was the elder Tarrou's obsession?

Short Essay Questions

1. How is it possible for Cottard to help Rambert?

2. Account for Cottard's behavior in Part 5 Chapter 5.

3. In what ways do Tarrou's plague symptoms first appear?

4. Explain the nature of the irony in the beginning of Part 5 Chapter 3.

5. Explain the poignancy of Dr. Rieux's walk through the streets.

6. What do you think has led Dr. Rieux to unburden himself to Grand?

7. Explain the significance of The Plague's final paragraph.

8. Why is there a steady supply of workers taking care of burials?

9. What drastic developments are depicted in Part 3 Chapter 1?

10. What is the situation in the camps for people in quarantine?

(see the answer keys)

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