View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is Kelvin's prior relationship with Gibarian?

2. Where did Snow find Gibarian's body?

3. Who led the first expedition to land on Solaris?

4. Who is the envelope Kelvin finds addressed to?

5. What damages Kelvin's face?

Short Essay Questions

1. What do Rheya's death and Gibarian's death have in common?

2. Is Kelvin on time for his meeting with Snow?

3. What is Snow's reaction when Kelvin admits that he has had his first visitor?

4. What is Snow's reaction to Kelvin's description of Rheya as a woman he once loved who killed herself?

5. Why do Sartorius, Snow, and Kelvin cover the cameras on their videophones?

6. Why aren't Berton's experiences related in the Supplement that Gibarian's note directs Kelvin to?

7. Who do the records say took The Little Apocrypha out of the library?

8. Describe the person Kelvin is shocked to see go into Gibarian's room.

9. Why does Kelvin launch the shuttle?

10. Describe the research station as Kelvin first sees it.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In Solaris, Kelvin is faced with his most deeply held guilt and desire. Similarly, the other characters are faced with repressed desires and obsessions, ones that horrify them when they're brought into reality.

1) What does the novel say about mankind's knowledge of himself and his own desires?

2) Are people's deepest desires always confounded with guilt, shame, or other negative emotions?

2) Why can't the scientists, as Kelvin suggests at one point, learn to live openly with their visitors and adjust to the situation over time?

Essay Topic 2

Throughout the novel Solaris, the ocean is depicted as a mirror that shows humanity, on some level, only a reflection of itself, perhaps without even realizing it.

1) Is it possible that Solaris has no real consciousness but is a kind of machine that throws back to the scientists images of their own minds?

2) Is humanity incapable of seeing in Solaris anything but itself, no matter what the truth of Solaris' consciousness may be?

3) Does Solaris show the scientists at any point anything beyond what's in their own minds?

Essay Topic 3

Solaris is written in the first person point of view, from Kelvin's perspective. Discuss point of view in Solaris.

1) Kelvin enters the Solaris research in the middle of the action, when Gibarian is already dead. Why does the author choose to begin with Kelvin's arrival into an already ongoing situation?

2) The first person point of view restricts the reader's knowledge to Kelvin's thoughts and perception. Why does the author choose this point of view?

3) Why does the author focus on Kelvin as a character and Kelvin's interaction with his visitor, to the exclusion of the other visitors?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 746 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample