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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 one physical maneuver that the narrator works hard on to get right in his apartment?

2. What does the woman cooking the liver say to the narrator during their interaction?

3. Why is the young boy in the building in Chapter 8?

4. What does the narrator ask the motorbike man to do in Part III that he has never asked before?

5. What is unusual about how the narrator wants the reenactors in the narrator's second reenactment scenario to speak?

Short Essay Questions

1. In Part III, who does the narrator begin to value more on his team and why?

2. What does the narrator do with Roger's models of the various scenes that interest him?

3. What happens to the cats on the roof of the building routinely, and how does the narrator handle this problem?

4. In Part IV, what event does the narrator become obsessed with reenacting?

5. What role does the narrator take in the homicide reenactment, and how does the reenactment make him feel?

6. What events does the narrator become obsessed with in general in Part IV?

7. In general, what does the narrator feel is a difficulty in getting the apartment building the way he wants it?

8. What happens to the narrator in the days immediately following his homicide reenactment?

9. What task does the narrator often ask Naz to perform for him that is outside the remit of his original purpose?

10. What is one unanticipated problem with cooking the liver in Chapter 9?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the original source of the narrator's feelings of hollowness, alienation, and inauthenticity? Write an essay explaining your answers, citing specific references to the text to help support your conclusions.

Essay Topic 2

Why do you think McCarthy chose the title Remainder for this book? What do you think McCarthy intends the title to mean to the reader? Write an essay explaining your answers.

Essay Topic 3

How much of the narrator's increasingly bizarre and dangerous demands do you think McCarthy intends the reader to attribute to the aftermath of the narrator's original accident? How much weight do you think McCarthy invites the reader to assign to the narrator's personality regarding his actions? Write an essay explaining your answers, citing specific references to the text to help support your conclusions.

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