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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. About what does Rebecque lecture Sharpe?

2. Of what is Sharpe convinced?

3. What is the use for the cobbled road?

4. What does the Prince of Orange do to cover his embarrassment from the previous day?

5. What happens to the farmland around Quatre Bras?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the difference between Napoleon and the Duke in how they come before their men and how their men acknowledge them?

2. What is a major failure on the French part that leads to their ultimate defeat?

3. Why, on the third day, are the French still confident of victory?

4. What stops the French from pursuing the retreating British army?

5. What type of relationship does the contrast of the two opposing generals have to the two armies?

6. What charge of heavy cavalry is described in Chapter 15 and what two roles do the horses have?

7. What gross error in judgment and orders did the Prince of Orange make in Chapter 15?

8. What happens to the British Heavy Cavalry unit with which John Rossendale is riding?

9. How does the author fit in a depiction of the Allied Forces in Chapter 13?

10. How do Sharpe and other British officers react to the sight of Napoleon and what might be the intent of Napoleon in that regard?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Sharpe's Waterloo is one book in a series of novels involving Richard Sharpe. Discuss the following.

1. What are two advantages of writing a series of novels about the same characters? Illustrate your statements with details from the text.

2. What is a disadvantage of writing a series of novels about the same characters? Illustrate your statements with details from the text.

3. Do you prefer to read a standalone book, or a series of books with the same main characters? Explain your response.

Essay Topic 2

D'Alembord's premonition that he will be killed and his developing fear of tomorrow's events exemplifies the true nature of courage, which includes coming to terms with fear and overcoming it.

1. Discuss in detail whether courage is the absence of fear or doing a task in spite of it. Use examples to support your answer.

2. If a person runs from a battle due to fear, do you think that means he will always run from a battle? Why or why not? Use examples to support your answer.

3. If a person goes into combat with no fear and kills a significant number of the enemy and perhaps rescues other soldiers, is that person courageous? In other words, if a person acts like a hero/ine, yet truly has no fear, does that person still qualify as having courage? Why or why not?

Essay Topic 3

The military way of life is in and of itself similar to a distinct culture. Understanding how the military is organized, how it operates, and its basic rules of conduct will make any novel that centers on the military more understandable and enjoyable. Discuss one of the following:

1. Describe and analyze the military structure during the time of Sharpe's Waterloo. What is rank? What is the difference between officers and enlisted men? How serious is it to disobey an order? What happens if one decides he does not like being in the military and walks away? How are men conscripted? Does the infantry have a similar means of augmenting their ranks as the maritime action called "impressment"?

2. Compare the infantry of Sharpe's Waterloo to that of modern times in the United States, England or France. What are the similarities? The differences? Are the changes from those times improvements? Why or why not? (This question will require some research).

3. Discuss why you think the military has the following: uniforms, a rank structure of officers and enlisted, strict discipline, training for new recruits, court martial, and different types of companies (i.e., rifle, cavalry, artillery, etc). Discuss why you think men (and nowadays women) choose to become professional soldiers.

(see the answer keys)

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