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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. When does Olive’s husband typically start work?

2. What character does Olive perform for her daughter in their game of pretend?

3. In the doorway of what kind of establishment do Gaspery and Zoey confer about his preservation of Olive?

4. On what date do Gaspery and Zoey confer after leaving Olive’s home?

5. How many hours does Olive’s flight back to the moon take?

Short Essay Questions

1. For what reasons does Olive regret having abandoned her suitcase for her return trip to the moon?

2. Ultimately, at what response to the simulation hypothesis does Gaspery arrive?

3. Why does Talia not remain with Zoey?

4. Why does Gaspery note that the people in New York City are comfortable touching each other when he encounters Vincent there?

5. For what reason does Gaspery note some regret at preserving Olive’s life?

6. To what does Gaspery liken having warned Olive of her coming death?

7. What reason is given for the exhaustion of meeting via hologram?

8. What is the actual reason Edwin spends much time walking after his military service?

9. How does Olive gloss the flight from Earth to the moon?

10. Gaspery finds the source of a quotation from Olive’s novel while in prison. What is the source?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

At a dinner party early in the novel, Edwin inveighs against British colonial practice. For it, he is sent away from his home, although he continues to be supported by his family. In all, what attitude toward colonial practice does the novels present? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 2

For the first-person sections of the novel, how reliable is the narrator? What in the text indicates that reliability, and how does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

St. John Mandel lists several authors whose materials she uses. Others are mentioned in the text. Not all of her literary influences are named, however. To what other writers is St. John Mandel indebted? For what? How does the text show as much?

(see the answer keys)

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