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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. What destroys the President's plane?
2. What does Roland realize will be the best source of power for himself and Macklin?
3. From what does Paul Thorson save Sister and Artie?
4. What is Earth House?
5. What does Paul plan to do when the batteries and food run out?
Short Essay Questions
1. What is unusual about the fight that Josh engages in in Chapter 2?
2. What does Roland do during his family's initial visit to Earth House that demonstrates that he is reckless and insensitive?
3. Why does Sister decide to continue to Kansas?
4. Why does Sister "Creep" get into a fight in Chapter 2?
5. Describe the ritual that the survivors in Paul's cabin carry out every day.
6. What happens to the leadership of the American government shortly after the nuclear attacks begin?
7. What decision does Josh make while he and the others are sleeping in the barn, and what is its significance?
8. What happens to Roland's parents during the fighting in Earth House?
9. How does Swan's group react to seeing the lit K-mart?
10. What does Doyle do to the members of Sister's group and why?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
At the beginning of the novel, the threat of nuclear war looms over the characters. The tensions between the United States and Russia are at an all-time high, and nuclear attacks could start at any minute. The characters live in fear and don't know how to deal with the enormity of the threat.
1) Explain the diplomatic situation at the beginning of the novel that puts the United States and Russia at the brink of nuclear war.
2) Discuss some of the reactions various people have to this threat. Explain the range of reactions, and discuss how rational or reactionary these behaviors are.
3) Discuss how reasonable and believable these reactions are, and speculate as to what some other reactions might be.
Essay Topic 2
Roland is one of the primary antagonists of the novel. A deeply flawed child at the beginning of the story, Roland only degrades from his initial position of extreme moral deprivation. When Friend, a supernatural being of pure evil who may be an embodiment of the devil himself, encounters Roland, he describes it like looking into a mirror.
1) Explain who Roland is and how he became an important player in the post-blast world.
2) Discuss Roland's moral flaws, including their origins and impacts on him, and the lowest depths to which Roland is willing to sink.
3) Explain the ways that Roland is able to deal with the violence he causes and sees around him and how he justifies his own works. Explain how the King's Knight game plays into this belief system.
4) Explain why Roland needs a strong figure, such as Macklin or Friend, to follow.
5) Track Roland's descent throughout the novel to the point when he asks to follow Friend and is rejected.
Essay Topic 3
When the Job's Masks begin to form on people's faces, there is massive discrimination against the afflicted. Innocents like Swan are treated extremely poorly, and some people, like Macklin and Roland, go to great lengths to conceal their affliction. While this treatment is terrible, it is at least marginally understandable. The masks are terrible to look at, and the survivors in the post-blast world have little time for tolerance and acceptance.
1) Describe the Job's Masks and explain why people discriminate against those who carry them. Explain some common beliefs about the masks that survivors hold in the time before their true function becomes widely known.
2) Discuss the ways that various people discriminate against those afflicted with the masks, including the intense persecution that Macklin lays against them.
3) Explain the way that many of the afflicted feel about their treatment, citing specific examples from the novel.
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This section contains 1,002 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
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