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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. In what state is Stella Maris?

2. Where does the protagonist’s mother place in a state beauty contest?

3. Which of the following computer scientists does the protagonist claim to admire?

4. In what year does Stella Maris become non-denominational?

5. In what year was Stella Maris established?

Short Essay Questions

1. What reason is given for Grothendieck leaving the IHES?

2. Why does the interlocutor remark that it is an oddity to claim Oppenheimer was stupid?

3. How does the protagonist argue that the Stanford-Binet test is racist?

4. What is the significance of the Fields Medal?

5. What agreement is implied to exist between the protagonist and interlocutor as the main text of the novel begins?

6. What vice does the protagonist admit to having?

7. Why does the protagonist report not investing her inheritance?

8. What opinion of Oppenheimer does the protagonist ascribe to her father?

9. What is implied to have occasioned the interlocutor’s divorce?

10. Why does the protagonist report having little contact with her father’s family?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In the novel, some characters are given but one name, while others are given first names and surnames, and still others are accorded names and titles. What significance, if any, accrues to patterns of naming in the novel? If no significance accrues, what purpose might be served by the patterns of naming in the novel? How does Stella Maris bear as much out?

Essay Topic 2

To what genre other than psychological fiction might Stella Maris be considered to belong? What in the text supports that identification? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

To what other writer’s work in your experience does McCarthy’s seem most similar? What makes the writers similar? What differentiates them? Overall, which do you regard as doing better at the craft of writing, and why?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 538 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample