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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. Why does Jago try to force Marco and Silver from the ship?

2. What is the result of the impact that occurs immediately after the ship arrives at the flat planet?

3. When Kin agrees to go with Jago Jalo, he arranges to take her first to what planet?

4. What is the function of a strata machine?

5. What is Joel's relationship to Kin?

Short Essay Questions

1. How are the explorers able to communicate with the inhabitants of the flat planet?

2. What are some of the technological resources that the group has at their disposal, and how will these things help them?

3. How does Jago die?

4. What does the Kung bartender's action say about Kin's fame?

5. What is learned about Jago during Silver and Marco's first encounter with him face-to-face?

6. What happens to the ship during its approach to the surface, and what is the result of this?

7. According to Joel, what are the consequences of the forgery of day bills? What does Joel do as a result?

8. What is the result of the attack on the group, and what do they learn about their attackers?

9. Who were the Spindle Kings, and what were they like?

10. How did the strata machine chance human history?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

After they crash on the flat planet, Kin and the others interact with its inhabitants in many places and in many different ways. These people, as rough analogues of real historical cultures, serve to illustrate various points that the author wishes to make about those civilizations.

Part 1) Describe the first meeting between the inhabitants of the flat planet and Kin and her companions. What are the results of this exchange? What impression do Kin and the other take away from this experience?

Part 2) Explain the other interactions the explorers have with the locals. How do these compare with their first interactions? Explain ways that the explorer's perceptions of the locals change as a result of later encounters.

Part 3) What impact do the explorers have on the local populations? Explain both immediate and long lasting effects.

Essay Topic 2

The Company is an organization of enormous power. It literally has power over life and death, and wields enormous influence in human culture. Kin's loyalty to the Company affects significant parts of the story.

Part 1) Describe the Company, it's history, and its goals.

Part 2) How well has the Company succeeded in its goals? Have its aims changed at all from the time of its founding?

Part 3) Why is the Company so large and influential? How is the Company's power seen in the story?

Part 4) Explain some of the consequences, both positive and negative, of the Company's enormous influence. Has it changed human society for the better, or for worse?

Essay Topic 3

Throughout the novel, the author presents several persons, places, or things that are intended to be direct references to historic or mythical analogues. Many of these references are humorous, but some are intended to provide foreshadowing or other dramatic elements. Research a number of these references for this essay.

Part 1) Explain as many examples of these references as possible. Include a description of the historical or mythical analogue and explain why the person, place, or thing in the book is intentionally constructed to reference it.

Part 2) What purpose do most of these references serve in the novel? Use examples from the book of how these references effect the story.

Part 3) Critically assess whether the use of these references is effective or if it is unnecessary or distracting to the main story.

(see the answer keys)

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