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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. How old was the protagonist when she left home for college?

2. Where did the protagonist and her brother visit Nina Rindt?

3. How far from ground zero at a nuclear test site had the protagonist’s father been?

4. How old is the interlocutor’s daughter?

5. What thinker does the protagonist note is necessary to the discussion of numbers?

Short Essay Questions

1. For what reason does the novel note the protagonist had previously been placed on suicide watch?

2. Why, per the protagonist, do falling climbers feel peace?

3. What does the protagonist note is commonly the most interesting thing about philosophers?

4. What purpose does the protagonist posit for her dominant hallucination from early in her experience with it?

5. Why does the protagonist indicate people prefer the idea of fate to the idea of chance?

6. How does the interlocutor explain the proscription against potentially entangling items at Stella Maris?

7. How does the protagonist report initially attempting to distract herself from her hallucinations?

8. Why does the protagonist distrust her doctoral advisor?

9. How does the protagonist respond to being asked if she is a sex worker?

10. Per the novel, what is a prestige?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Section divisions, their titles, and chapter numbering / division schema are all components of paratext. That is, they are not part of the text but are associated with it closely and affect its meaning. What significance, if any, accrues to the chapter-numbering scheme at work in Stella Maris? If there is significance, how does that significance manifest? If there is not, what in the novel supports the paratextual divisions that are in place?

Essay Topic 2

Sources attest to the presence of Stella Maris on best-seller lists. Assuming that sales figures reflect popularity, what accounts for the popularity of the novel? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

The protagonist remarks that “intelligence is numbers. It’s not words. Words are things we’ve made up. Mathematics is not” (19). Does the novel bear out her remarks? How or how not?

(see the answer keys)

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