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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. What is the name of Evie’s pilot?

2. How does the novel gloss the phrase “e fenua manuïa”?

3. On which atoll had the Queen worked?

4. From what country had the Queen’s husband come?

5. How long is Profunda on Makatea before the referendum?

Short Essay Questions

1. What had been Didier’s goal in office?

2. Why does Rafi take a college course in European Literary Modernism while still in high school?

3. What privileges does the Queen associate with her title?

4. What had Todd’s father said about a person’s worth and character?

5. What coda does Evie hope to witness from helping the manta ray?

6. Why does Rafi obsess over editing his master’s thesis?

7. Why does the Queen make a point of calling on Wen Lai?

8. What do journalists pointedly not report about Evie’s Tektite II mission?

9. What is Todd’s refuge on campus as a freshman?

10. What does Todd note about eggplant?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

To what other writer’s work in your experience does Powers’s seem most similar? What makes the writers similar? What differentiates them? Overall, which do you regard as doing better at the craft of writing, and why?

Essay Topic 2

Consider the ending of the novel. Does it satisfy? How or how not?

Essay Topic 3

Consider the cosmogyny expressed in the first two sections of the novel. What does it explain in your world? What does it fail to explain? How?

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This section contains 498 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample