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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 month is it at the beginning of "The Big House" Chapter?

2. What does Tyler send Diane?

3. Who is Jala's ex-wife?

4. What are Tyler Dupree and his two friends, the thirteen-year-old twins, Diane and Jason Lawton, doing?

5. Where are Diane and Tyler at the beginning of the book?

Short Essay Questions

1. What disease does Tyler say Jason has and what are the implications?

2. How will ecopoiesis work on Mars?

3. Where does the cab take Tyler and Diane and who do they meet?

4. What is the implication of a world where time moves much more slowly compared to the rest of the Universe?

5. How does Tyler seem to continue in his mother's "footsteps"?

6. Why does Tyler decide to write the story of him and his friends?

7. Briefly describe the different paths the three friends, Diane, Jason, and Tyler choose as adults and after the coming of Spin.

8. What similarity is there between what is happening with Tyler and Diane in the present and what is happening between Jason and Tyler in the past?

9. What incident does Tyler recall and what theme does this incident reveal?

10. What movement does Diane belong to and how is that movement characterized? How is the behavior of the movement ironic?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Tyler is writing a record of his past, which could be called a journal, memoir or autobiography. Discuss the following:

What is a journal? Is it the same as a memoir or autobiography? Why or why not.

What is gained by framing this story in the format of a memoir? What is lost by doing so?

Although Spin is a work of fiction, the author would have the readers "suspend their disbelief" and view it as an actual memoir describing actual events. If the reader were to assume the events described in Tyler's writings were actually true, how do you think the point of view of the narrator would bias the account?

Essay Topic 2

Jason, Tyler and Diane are in their early teens when Spin first appears around the Earth. Discuss one of the following:

How does Jason deal with Spin when it first occurs and as an adult? Is his response mentally healthy? Courageous? Emotional, intellectual or both? Explain with examples.

How does Tyler deal with Spin when it first occurs and as an adult? Is his response mentally healthy? Courageous? Emotional, intellectual or both? Explain with examples.

How does Diane deal with Spin when it first occurs and as an adult? Is his response mentally healthy? Courageous? Emotional, intellectual or both? Explain with examples.

Essay Topic 3

E. D. tells Jason that information is generally valuable in the hands of those who can use it. Discuss the following:

Analyze and explain fully what you think E. D. believes about information.

How does access to information give E. D. and others of his ilk power? Give examples.

Compare a character who abuses the acquisition of information to one who uses it for the benefit of human kind.

Does what is discussed in this story about information have any validity in our own world? Explain.

(see the answer keys)

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