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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 is Charles acting like that scares Stephen?

2. Where does Stephen sit in the car that comes to pick him up for his meeting with the Prime Minister?

3. What is Stephen supposed to do with the book?

4. How does Stephen spend a lot of his evenings?

5. Who appears to talk to Stephen at the subcommittee in a formal way?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does the handbook excerpt say that it is acceptable to bribe children for good behavior?

2. How does Stephen survive the crash with the truck?

3. When the secretary insists that Stephen meet with the Prime Minister, how does he respond?

4. How does Stephen work through his feelings about Julie and her leaving him?

5. Why does the young man at the subcommittee meeting believe that learning written languages at an early age is not a good idea?

6. Why does the driver of the truck want Stephen to write down two notes?

7. What does Stephen purchase for Kate's birthday and what does it signify to him?

8. Why did Thelma move with Charles to the countryside?

9. What was Stephen's experience in Africa as a child?

10. What does Stephen say about writing and music and early childhood education at the subcommittee meeting?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Through Stephen, McEwan offers a lens to view the government and corruption via the committees. He describes the officials in The Child In Time as self-serving. Describe the typical government worker in The Child In Time. Do you think this is realistic and characteristic of today? Do you think the issues that McEwan discusses are still relevant today and if so, in what ways?

Essay Topic 2

Describe the power of the press in The Child in Time. Is the press objective? Why or why not? What kind of media bias do they reveal? How are they influenced?

Essay Topic 3

In The Child In Time, Stephen appears to travel through time seamlessly. Time and space have more ambiguous boundaries? What do you think of the way time and space are portrayed in The Child In Time? Which aspects do you find more or less appealing? How does this relate to the past and memories? How does this affect future events?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 969 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample