View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Mary: How does God feel about Mary?

2. Great Expectations: What happens to people's computerized afterlives?

3. Great Expectations: The afterlife in this story is?

4. Descent of Species: What are you able to choose in this afterlife?

5. Adhesion: What happens to people when they die?

Short Essay Questions

1. Missing: Why is the dispute over God's gender irrelevant in this story?

2. Perpetuity: Why does God treat sinners so well in this afterlife?

3. Giantess: What happened as a result of the princely man's attempt to communicate with the Giantess?

4. Descent of Species: What does the human-turned-horse realize right before he can no longer think?

5. Angst: Why do the humans in this story dread returning to the afterlife?

6. The Cast: As you live your life, all of the people in the background of your life are actors. They are those in the afterlife who must play "roles" in your life. However, not every actor is happy being a character in your life. Why are they so dissatisfied?

7. Spirals: Why do the creatures in this afterlife think humans are so intelligent?

8. Mirrors: In this story death is a two part process. The first death comes when a person takes their final breath, but the second part does not come until later. What kills the person the second time?

9. Egalitaire: God created life to be good and bad, but then had a problem creating a way to judge people in the afterlife. Why is that?

10. Great Expectations: In this story the people who create and program afterlives are basically selling a false product, though not intentionally. How is it that people are mistaken in their understanding of the afterlife?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Reins:

This afterlife is run by committee. God used to run it, but began to lose control to man and the angels. After God's Heaven was taken from him he began to identify with men like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi.

1) Why does God feel his vision of Heaven was stolen from him?

2) What might happen to God's vision, or anyone's vision, if it is taken over by other people?

3) Who are King and Gandhi? Why does God relate to them?

Essay Topic 2

Adhesion:

The Collectors have created human beings in an effort to understand why some things stick together. They study man to discover why some human relationships work while others fail. So far their experiment has been both costly and time consuming as they still are baffled by human relationships.

1) List the reasons in the story that people stay together in relationships.

2) List the reasons in the story that people break off relationships.

Pretend you are the Collector who must come to a final conclusion about human adhesion once and for all. What do you conclude is the reason man forms lasting relationships? Why do they form impermanent ones? Explain your answer using evidence the Collectors have in the story.

Essay Topic 3

The Unnatural:

The Unnatural part of this story is the absence of death. The reader is shown a world in which death is not a fear and where people will go to great lengths to reinsert death into life. Can you imagine a world in which there is no death? What would that world be like? Do you think people would wish to commit suicide and kill others? Why or why not? What do you think gives life meaning? Does death give meaning to life? Why or why not?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,062 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample