View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where is Dan assigned to work?

2. What is Sachi doing?

3. As Mama Chia hurries among gravestones and speaks with new urgency, what does Dan feel?

4. Who has guarded Molokai for four centuries?

5. What does the first window show?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why do you think Dan dreads what lies ahead?

2. Does Dan change his mind about the settlement? How?

3. How does Mama Chia answer Dan's question about having money and supporting his family?

4. What happens with Dan and the punks and do you think it will have significance later?

5. What is the path to the heart? Does this seem difficult?

6. From whom does Dan ask permission to be there and what do you think this is symbolic of?

7. What task does Mama Chia give Dan and how does he handle it?

8. What is foreshadowed in this section?

9. What vision does Dan have as he meditates by the waterfall?

10. To whom does Mama Chia want Dan to be grateful and what does that mean?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Mama Chia tells about her friend, Fuji, whose love is photography, who after 30 years loses everything in a fire, but having learned to see life as beauty and harmony, gets over the loss. Discuss the following:

What losses has Dan suffered that would be difficult to let go of?

Often when there is a loss, a gain fills the void. What does Dan gain that fills any loss he suffers?

Have you had a time when you suffered what seems to be an unbearable loss and gained something precious in its place. Explain.

How have you dealt with one significant loss in your life?

Essay Topic 2

Dan Millman decides to go to India in search of some sort of spiritual enlightenment. Discuss the following:

Why does Millman think he needs to go to India?

Why do you think many Westerners go to places such as India and Tibet in search of spiritual enlightenment?

Do you think Dan could have found what he needed where he lives in Ohio?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss one of the following:

Compare and contrast Dan as who he is at the beginning of the book to who he seems to be at the end of the book.

Compare and contrast Mama Chia's spiritual ideas with those of your own.

Compare and contrast Dan's experience on the surfboard with the most harrowing experience you have had and what you both learned from your experience.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,085 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample