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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 large a food and drink voucher had Smitty had?

2. Which of the following does Pennybrook report having met?

3. How does “Hasta Luego” gloss its eponymous phrase?

4. Which of the following does Jerry pack as he travels?

5. Which of the following writers does Touchett idolize?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why do Pushkin and Irina move to Moscow?

2. Why is “Prufrock” a poor choice for seductive reading, per “The Ballad of Timothy Touchett”?

3. Why does Touchett take the job Pennybrook offers him?

4. How do Pushkin and Irina regard Moscow upon their arrival?

5. Why does Smitty’s wife demand Jerry get him out of the bar?

6. How does Pennybrook portray Dos Passos to Touchett?

7. On what does “The Line” assert “the wisdom of the peasant is founded” (5)?

8. What does Jerry note as his major failing?

9. Why is Pushkin pleased the bakery where he initially queues offers only one product?

10. What does Jerry note is the virtue of having a flight canceled early?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Overall, how does the anthology present the use of alcohol and other drugs? What significance accrues to that presentation—or, if no significance accrues to that presentation, to what effect is the presentation made?

Essay Topic 2

To what other writer’s work in your experience does Towles’s seem most similar? What makes the writers similar? What differentiates them? Overall, which do you regard as doing better at the craft of writing, and why?

Essay Topic 3

In “I Will Survive,” as well as in some other places in the text, the narrator directly addresses the reader: “If this summary strikes you as rather cold and abrupt, imagine how it sounded to Peggy” (113). What effect does the direct address have on the reader, and how is the effect achieved?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 501 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample