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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 is the name of the Assistant Chief of Police in Ka's hometown?

2. Where does Ka head to after leaving his meeting with Ipek when the Director of Education is killed?

3. What does Ka realize has happened to Muhtar but not to him after they are taken in by police for questioning?

4. Which of the following things does not occur to the director after getting off an elevator with a man, according to a story Ka's college friend tells him after he leaves his first meeting with Blue?

5. Which of the following scenes is not on the posters and wall clippings at a tea house visited by Ka to write the poem "Hidden Symmetry"?

Short Essay Questions

1. What happens at the end of Sunay's first play at the National Theatre?

2. What questions does Necip ask Ka when he is standing outside the National Theater?

3. What do the police want Ka to do when they take him into the station in regards to the Director of Education's death?

4. What is the nature of the favor Muhtar asks of Ka in regards to his ex-wife?

5. How is Blue described the first time he is seen in the book?

6. What is the nature of Ka and Fazil's conversation when Fazil approaches him in the library?

7. How is the director of the Institute for Education killed?

8. How is Sunay and Funda's seventies political theater background described in the book?

9. What is the nature of Ka's conversation with the sheikh when he first sees him at the Green Pastures café?

10. What is the nature of Blue's speech regarding Hans Hensen to Ka?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the role of drinking in the book, notably as it is used as a coping mechanism. How does Ka's use of alcohol to forget his problems differ from Funda's, who uses it to manipulate others?

Essay Topic 2

Compare and contrast the sisters Ipek and Kadife in the book. What is telling of the bond these sisters share based on their work with Blue's cause?

Essay Topic 3

Early on in the book, it becomes clear that the city of Kars is a place with backward principles and much controversy.

Part 1.) What about Ka's entrance into Kars suggests it is a dangerous place for him to be found?

Part 2.) What do we learn about the laws and rules enacted in Kars that are biased and/or backwards towards the poor and women?

Part 3.) What can we learn about the nature of undemocratic nations based on the author's portrayal of Kars in the book?

(see the answer keys)

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