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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 does Ambrose tell Merivel?

2. How does Pearce feel about Merivel being at the hospital?

3. What name does Merivel go by at Whittlesea?

4. What does Merivel do most of the day while he is ill?

5. What instigated Katherine's illness?

Short Essay Questions

1. What news does the King give Merivel when Merivel answers the summons?

2. How are the most insane patients treated?

3. What is Merivel able to do at the funeral that he could not do while Pearce was alive?

4. Describe the music at the dance.

5. What does Pearce wonder about flowers?

6. How does the King feel about Merivel, after time has passed?

7. What punishment did Finn get for arguing with the King?

8. What does the King advise Merivel to do with his life?

9. What act of bravery does Merivel commit?

10. What does Merivel discover when he examines Pearce?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the characters' control over their own lives in the novel.

1) How does a character's birth and family affect his or her life in the novel? Can a character change the course of his or her life?

2) How does chance and fate affect the characters' lives in the novel?

3) How do characters control their own lives and futures in the novel, and to what extent?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss poverty and social class in the novel.

1) What different social strata exist in the novel? What determines what social class the people in the novel live in?

2) What allows characters in the novel to change social status, for better or worse? Why?

3) How does Merivel treat people of different social classes?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the role of medicine in the novel.

1) Why does the author choose the medical field as Merivel's profession? What does his desire to be a doctor say about his personality? What is the role of a doctor in a society?

2) How effective is Merivel as a doctor? What qualities does Merivel have that make him a good or bad doctor? How much control does Merivel have over how effective a doctor he is?

(see the answer keys)

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