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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 main piece of evidence in the trial?

2. How old is the narrator in Chapter 1?

3. How does the narrator describe the feeling he gets from his father regarding their family?

4. One of the main charges in the case involved a bombing; where was the bombing? Who survived?

5. What day of the week does Michael have a break from the trials and his studies?

Short Essay Questions

1. 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.

2. Why is the evidence actually favorable to the defendants, as explained in Chapter 7?

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

4. Describe the Frau Schmitz's apartment.

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

6. Describe Michael's classroom and classmates as they are presented in Chapter 13.

7. Describe Michael's daydreams from Chapter 13.

8. How does the narrator find the courage to return to Frau Schmitz's apartment?

9. Describe the lines of reasoning the defendants (including Hanna) give for not unlocking the church doors, as explained in Chapter 9.

10. Describe the building on Bahnhofstrasse.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In Part 1, Chapter 5 Michael says that he recognizes a life pattern in himself, and that "often enough in my life I have done things I had not decided to do." What does Michael mean by this? Describe and give examples of the disconnect Michael feels between making a decision and completing an action. How does this act as a foreshadowing of Michael's later behavior?

Essay Topic 2

In Part 3, Chapter 1, Michael describes a "German fate." What is the German fate? How does Michael equate the pain of his love for Hanna to his own German fate? How does their relationship parallel the generational conflict in Germany?

Essay Topic 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

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