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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 Minerva attacked by?

2. Who talks Jack into buying shares in a mine?

3. How does Jeffreys think Daniel wants England to be run?

4. Whom does Wilkins ask to carry on his work?

5. What are Enoch's saddle bags filled with at the beginning of the book?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Boyle say after Wilkins's death that upsets Daniel?

2. What did the Duke of York want to talk to Daniel about?

3. What does Daniel see is his role when the Declaration for Freedom of Conscience of all Dissenters is signed?

4. How does Daniel meet Leibniz?

5. How did Eliza come to be in the place she met Jack?

6. Why did Daniel think he got the best education possible at Cambridge?

7. What happened to make Daniel upset with Hooke's experiments?

8. What news does the Earl of Epsom bring Daniel?

9. What happens when Trinity re-opens after the first closure?

10. How did Jack meet Eliza?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Despair was an emotion that affected a number of the characters in this book. Which characters were most affected by despair, and how did this change the course of the plot branches they were involved in?

Essay Topic 2

What role did slavery play in this plot, and which characters were most affected by the inclusion of the theme of slavery?

Essay Topic 3

Stephenson presents the idea that there are two sides to every man. Choose three of the characters from the book and write about their dual natures and how this duality affected the characters around them.

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