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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 Lieutenant Simon Bloggett want of Sharpe?

2. What does Geisenau do?

3. Where do Sharpe and Harper travel with other officers and staff?

4. What does Wellington do about the troops' baggage?

5. What does the Duke see to their south?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What new weapon is used, who invented it and why did the description of it stand out among other action scenes?

3. What does Sharpe tell Rossendale during their encounter in the woods?

4. What is the difference between the disposition of the Allied Forces and the French in Chapter 13? For what does this afford the author an opportunity?

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

6. Describe the area where the retreating British army takes up a position in Chapter 10.

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

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

9. What does the author's placement of Sharpe in Chapter 14 do as a narrative device?

10. What explanations about British firing techniques are described in great detail in chapter 15?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Though the author Cornwell may or may not have such personal views on women, the way women are characterized in his series is often less than complimentary. Discuss one of the following:

1. Present and analyze the treatment of women in Sharpe's Waterloo.

2. Cornwell is trying to be historically accurate, so is his treatment of women in his book(s) justified?

3. Is there any way Cornwell could have presented women in a more positive light and still stayed historically accurate? Explain.

Essay Topic 2

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 3

In Chapter 11, the macabre auction of the personal possessions of the dead officers is another example of the brutally simple disposition of the fallen soldiers' belongings and also their corpses. Only the most privileged soldiers and officers will have the benefit of loved ones and servants to seek them out from the vast field of dead and dying when the battle is over.

1. Do you think the treatment of dead soldiers and their possessions in this era meant that people had little value to society as a whole back then? Why or why not?

2. In terms of manpower does it seem to be short-sighted of the ruling class to pay so little attention to the wounded on the battle field? In other words, how many men may have died who could have survived to continue serving in the military? Why or why not would you consider the ruling class short-sighted in regards to wounded men?

3. Compare and discuss the difference in the way wounded are treated in war today as compared to that era.

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