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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. How do the other defense attorneys deal with Hanna's admissions?

2. To whom does Michael try to talk about his feelings regarding his epiphany about Hanna with?

3. What do the other defendants claim after Hanna's admission?

4. In Part 2, Chapter 13, the trials move to a new location. Where does the trial take place?

5. What does Michael plan to do while the trials are in another location?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Michael do in the weeks after he and Hanna have their first fight?

2. As described in Chapter 10, where is Michael when he has an epiphany about Hanna? What is the epiphany, and how does Michael realize it?

3. How does Michael justify thinking of Hanna as a horse in Chapter 14?

4. What does the narrator's mother assume he would do at the end of Chapter 1, after the narrator is diagnosed with hepatitis?

5. What makes Frau (Hanna) Schmitz so angry in Chapter 8?

6. In Part 2, Chapter 4, how does Michael compare the trial to being a prisoner in a death camp?

7. Describe the memory the narrator discusses in Chapter 7, when he is four years old. Why is it significant?

8. How does Michael "betray" Hanna, as he explains in Chapter 15?

9. Describe Michael's feelings about his last years in school and his first years in university, as he relates them in Part 2, Chapter 1.

10. Describe Hanna's lawyer from Part 2, Chapter 3.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

During the trials it is discovered that Hanna had "favorite" prisoners, young women who were too weak to work, whom she had read to her much like Michael. What can the reader draw from this discovery? How does Michael feel about this? How could this revelation change the way in which the reader sees Hanna?

Essay Topic 2

Hanna and Micheal's relationship is immediate and intense, yet the reader only has Michael's view of their budding romance. From a literary standpoint, why might the author construct their relationship in this way? What are the disadvantages for reader, of not knowing how Hanna truly feels about Michael? The advantages?

Essay Topic 3

How does Hanna act as a "bully" in the early stages of the relationship she has with Michael? Why does Michael feel he has no choice but to give in to Hanna and her demands? How does this set the tone for Hanna's behavior during her trial?

(see the answer keys)

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