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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What do stars look like to Tralfamadorans?
(a) Strings of luminous spaghetti
(b) Glowing bouncing balls
(c) Hexagonal specks of light
(d) Pulsating circles of light

2. How does Roland Weary die?
(a) Killed by a German guard
(b) By shooting himself in the head
(c) From gangrene in his feet
(d) Killed by the other prisoners

3. What does Barbara think is wrong with Billy when she finds him in his cold house?
(a) She thinks he is getting senile.
(b) She thinks he got pneumonia.
(c) She thinks he is distracted by grief.
(d) She thinks he is too proud to ask for money.

4. Why did the German soldiers throw Billy into a shrubbery?
(a) They wanted to play hide and seek with him.
(b) They were angry at him for smiling so much.
(c) So they could take a picture of his
(d) They wanted him to help with the gardening.

5. What surprised the British officers most about the American prisoners?
(a) How nice they were
(b) How tired they looked
(c) How ill-dressed they were
(d) How young they were

6. How do the Tralfamadorans make Billy climb the ladder?
(a) They poke him with long sticks.
(b) They shoot a ray at him.
(c) They ask him politely.
(d) They threaten him with death.

7. What is unusual about the war movie Billy watches?
(a) It is about Billy's own experiences in the war.
(b) It plays backwards and then forwards again.
(c) The characters in the movie start talking to Billy.
(d) It stars Roland Weary as the hero of the story.

8. What is the only book Billy can read on the trip to Tralfamadore?
(a) How Green Was My Valley
(b) The Dollhouse Murders
(c) The Valley of the Dolls
(d) The Sorrow and the Pity

9. What do humans look like to the Tralfamadorans?
(a) Millipedes
(b) Chimpanzees
(c) Pale worms
(d) Butterflies

10. What does Billy do the night before his daughter's wedding?
(a) He talks to his old friend Bernard O'Hare.
(b) He takes a nap while watching televsision.
(c) He calls an old girlfriend on the phone.
(d) He waits for the aliens to kidnap him.

11. Why do the Germans take pictures of Roland and Billy?
(a) For official records
(b) For propaganda purposes
(c) They are making postcards
(d) They like the Americans

12. How does Billy's son Robert straighten out his life?
(a) He becomes a Green Beret in Vietnam.
(b) He stops drinking and becomes sober.
(c) He gets a job delivering phone books.
(d) He settles down and gets married.

13. Who is Wild Bob?
(a) A German guard who loved American cowboy movies
(b) A colonel who lost his entire regiment
(c) The hobo Billy meets in the railroad car
(d) The name of a German shepherd in a POW camp

14. What did the German soldiers find on Billy when they searched him?
(a) A picture of his girlfriend
(b) A two-inch pencil stub
(c) His rifle and bayonet
(d) The letter from his mother

15. What does Billy do when he gets drunk at the party in 1961?
(a) He calls up old girlfriends.
(b) He yells at his best friend.
(c) He passes out on the living room rug.
(d) He cheats on his wife.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why is Billy taken to the hospital during the play?

2. What does the author compare the march of American prisoners to?

3. How did Vonnegut once write an outline for a book?

4. Who does Roland Weary blame for his death?

5. Who is "Princess?"

(see the answer keys)

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