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. What is Ossipon's opinion of Stevie?

2. Which member of the International Red Committee rambles at the beginning of their meeting?

3. What is the professor's master skill?

4. Although initially insisting he works independently, the professor eventually confesses that he recently had sold what?

5. What does the professor tell Ossipon he will do if the police try to arrest him?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the professor describe as his goal and what does it take to achieve it?

2. How is Michaelis described?

3. As the assistant commissioner does not believe that Chief Inspector Heat is being totally open with him, what are the items of information he finally receives before he dismisses him?

4. What happens when Mr. Verloc is going around putting out the lights in the house after the Red Committee's meeting and he encounters his wife's sibling watching him?

5. What is Mr. Verloc's attitude toward Mrs. Verloc's lone sibling?

6. How does Ossipon learn it was Mr. Verloc who obtained explosives from the professor, and what is his reaction?

7. How is Mrs. Verloc's younger sibling's spare time occupied and where?

8. What is Ossipon's view of Mrs. Verloc's sibling?

9. Where has Mrs. Verloc's sibling been during the Red Committee's meeting and what has the reaction been?

10. Why is it Mr. Verloc is able to leave his business in the hands of his brother-in-law in the morning?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Conrad establishes scenes by laying out in great detail the stage setting upon which the scene will take place. For instance, in Chapter 1 he provides an extensive description of the front window and entrance to the Verloc's pornography shop. In Chapter 4 he delivers a virtual snapshot of the Silenus beer-hall where Ossipon encounters the professor. Discuss how Conrad uses this technique to establish settings in which scenes take place.

Essay Topic 2

Some of the characters in Conrad's novel are not whom they initially seem to be. Some are harder than they might have at first appeared, others not quite as cold or callous. Take four characters and examine how they are different by the end of the tale than at first encountered. Describe the individual's outlook and view of the world and what motivates them to change.

Essay Topic 3

Adolf Verloc is found to be a French spy by the second chapter. But it is not until Chapter 6 that the reader learns he has also been an informant for Chief Inspector Heat. By the end of Chapter 5 it is know that the bomb victim was not Heat as thought possible in Chapter 4, but who is it then? Examine how Conrad uses surprise and secrecy throughout his novel.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,091 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample