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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. Who is Cloud's sibling?

2. What does the professor often do to the narrator?

3. What do the impasse beasts thrive upon?

4. Where did the narrator first meet Charley?

5. What do sorrowful beasts prefer?

Short Essay Questions

1. In Part I, what does the narrator's professor tell her might have happened to the male sorrowful beast Cloud?

2. What kind of relationship does the narrator have with her professor?

3. How does Lefty "tame" the sorrowful beast?

4. What is unusual about the death of sacrificial beasts?

5. What does the narrator's professor say about joyous beasts when she asks him about the picture in the paper?

6. Why can the sorrowful beasts never smile?

7. What is Charley's connection to Li Chun?

8. Why is Lucia upset by her visit to Cloudtop Towers?

9. How does a joyous beast reproduce?

10. What do humans decide to do with the remainder of the sacrificial beasts in Part II?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How does writing newspaper stories and novels affect the narrator's own perceptions of her feelings and confusions throughout the novel? Write an essay explaining your answers, citing specific references to the text to help support your conclusions.

Essay Topic 2

Why do you think Ge chose to write this novel from the first-person perspective of the unnamed narrator? How does this choice affect the reader's experience? Write an essay explaining your answers, citing specific references to the text to help support your conclusions.

Essay Topic 3

What do you think Ge intends to communicate to readers by revealing, at the end of the novel, that there is actually very little separation between the worlds of beasts and humans? Write an essay explaining your answers, citing specific references to the text to help support your conclusions.

(see the answer keys)

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