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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. Which of the following does Percival eat with Peter and his family?

2. On what street does Fein live?

3. To which of the following does Percival compare an Annunciation?

4. In what year did Percival’s father die?

5. What violinist do Tommy and his wife see at Carnegie Hall?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Jeremy opt to go out with a friend while Nell follows John?

2. How does the narrator note Tommy takes after his father?

3. What is Bobby Daniels’ current occupation?

4. What, per Nell, was at the root of Peggy’s fear about John?

5. Why does Percival assert that admission to the Metropolitan Museum is for a “recommended” fee?

6. Why does Jeremy recommend against taking a bottle of water when surveilling others?

7. Why is John called Gloria by the roller-skating group?

8. How does Tommy react to the arrival of Fein at the beginning of “The Bootlegger”?

9. Why, per Percival, are there few DiDomenico paintings?

10. What does the narrator of “The Bootlegger” note would be her preferred downtime activity?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The narrator of “The Line” asks the following question (13): “For to serve the ones we love and receive their approval in return, need life be any more complicated than that?” Does the remainder of the short story offer an answer to that question? If so, what is the answer and how is it presented? If not, what effect does raising the question and refusing to answer it have for the reader?

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

Some of the selections in the anthology are written from a first-person narrative perspective. Some are written from a third-person narrative perspective. What difference do the different perspectives make on the reading? What in the text and in experience result in those differences and how do they do so?

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