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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 Heat tell the assistant commissioner that the coroner suspects regarding the fatality at the Greenwich Park explosion?

2. Which member of the Red Committee expresses his opinion that Stevie is capable of becoming a criminal as he views her sibling as a degenerate?

3. What is the professor's reply when Ossipon asks if he has heard about the morning bomb explosion in Greenwich Park?

4. What are the items usually sold when young men come in the shop for their first time and find Winnie at the counter?

5. What route does Red Committee group member Michaelis say is the answer to the current social ills?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Mr. Verloc's response to his meeting with Mr. Vladimir after he returns home?

2. What is it Mr. Vladimir seeks from Mr. Verloc?

3. How is Mr. Verloc's business establishment described?

4. Why was Michaelis sent to prison?

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

6. 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?

7. How is Winnie Verloc's appearance described?

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

9. Describe what act done by Chief Inspector Heat is detailed and defined as not particularly wise?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Mr. Verloc has friends of his who are members of the International Red Committee as guests discussing social reform and terrorism. Examine how the author uses his novel, The Secret Agent, as a satire on anarchism.

Essay Topic 2

In Chapter 3, Stevie is able to listen to the International Red Committee members' discussion in the parlor from his position in the adjoining kitchen. Conrad allows the reader to know that Stevie is easily upset by so much as a description of cruelty toward others. This foreshadows his reactions to subsequent events. Examine what transpires in this chapter which lays the foundation for this matter in Conrad's tale. Follow it through to the conclusion of Stevie's role in Adolf Verloc's plot.

Essay Topic 3

Toodles, the secretary of state's private secretary, only appears in two chapters. He is initially introduced in Chapter 7, when the assistant commissioner first reports to the secretary of state, and again in Chapter 10, when the assistant commissioner returns unexpectedly early to make his report to the secretary of state. Examine how the author uses this new character, Toodles, and both encounters he has with the assistant commissioner in relaying his tale.

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