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. To where does Nikola Tesla begin to write letters at age fifty?

2. What happens to patents filed by Nikola Tesla in 1922?

3. In what year does Nikola Tesla become very feeble?

4. After Mark Twain and J. Pierpont Morgan die, what happens to Nikola Tesla's behavior?

5. Why does Nikola Tesla wish to reject the Edison Medal of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers?

Short Essay Questions

1. Whom does Nikola approach for funding for his system to broadcast all wavelength channels from a single station, and why is this person his choice?

2. In Chapter 25, "The Birthday Parties," how does Kenneth Swezey make Nikola's seventy-fifth birthday memorable?

3. What do Nikola and Ivan Mestrovic have in common, and how do they leverage those commonalities?

4. Why does Nikola try not to attend the Edison Medal ceremony to receive his award?

5. In Chapter 26, "Corks on Water," explain why J.P. Morgan will not invest in proposals Nikola Tesla makes after the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

6. In the face of what is termed the 1903 "Rich Man's Panic," how does Scherff advise Nikola Tesla to leverage one of his inventions to raise funds?

7. As described in Chapter 28, "Death and Transfiguration," why is Nikola Tesla caught in the middle of politics with regard to the role of Yugoslavia in World War II?

8. What mistake does Nikola make when proposing his process for degassifying copper to the American Smelting and Refining Company?

9. What does the fact that Nikola Tesla tries to send a letter to the long-dead Mark Twain signal about his impending death?

10. What closure does Nikola get as he learns about medical uses for his oscillator inventions?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Nikola Tesla has learned to hobnob with high society as a way to gain access to potential investors. He is clearly eccentric and not affluent, yet he is accepted as a member of the New York "400." What reasons can you give for this? Describe your reasons why the Robert Underwood Johnson family considers him worthy of inclusion at their Lexington Avenue parties. Why are the conventions Nikola learns from socializing with the Johnsons important to his ongoing society efforts?

Essay Topic 2

Over a period of several decades, Nikola Tesla has a platonic relationship with Katherine Johnson. Describe the reasons you think Nikola and Katherine have for valuing this relationship. What does Katherine provide Nikola? And in turn, what does Nikola bring Katherine? What reasons is this friendship able to survive for so many years, especially since Katherine is married to Nikola Tesla's friend Robert Underwood Johnson?

Essay Topic 3

It seems that Nikola Tesla's decision not to enter into a marriage was part of a deliberate effort to maintain the focus on his career. Yet other successful "money men" and inventors of the times had wives and children. With your knowledge of Nikola, and given the times in which he lived, explain whether you think he would have been able to envision and create the devices and ideas that he did had he been married. Select one or two married "money men" described in the book, and discuss why they were able to be successful. Are the type of women they selected for mates similar to the type of women with whom Nikola affiliated as friends?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 973 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample