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. What is the discovery of Saladin, the Sultan of Babylon?

2. What happens to Marato on board a ship?

3. What does Pietro end up with that is worth more than the money he lost?

4. Why does Rustico agree to allow Alibech to remain with him?

5. With whom does Isabetta fall in love and begin an affair?

Short Essay Questions

1. How dies Alatiel end up on the island of Majorca?

2. What ultimately happens after Ciappelletto dies?

3. Why have the young people of the novel left Florence and gone into the country?

4. Describe the happy occasion for Alatiel as she prepares to get married.

5. What happens when the secret of Masetto's affair with the nun gets out?

6. Who takes Andreuccio into a scheme to make easy money?

7. What eventually transpires between Masetto and one of the nuns?

8. What do the village women tell Alibech after she explains how she put the devil back into hell with Rustico.

9. How does the handsome Masetto manage to become the gardener for a convent of eight nuns and an abbess?

10. Why does Isabetta cry over a pot of basil?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay of at least two typewritten, double spaced pages on the topic, The Value of Quick Thinking. Find at least two examples of how a person's quick thinking in THE DECAMERON averted a serious complication. Discuss the ability to think quickly in compromising situations and give an example or two of how it might work in a situation you set up for purposes of this essay.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay of at least two typewritten, double spaced pages on the topic, Women as the Weaker Sex in THE DECAMERON. Use at least three different examples of how women are seen as inferior to men and more susceptible to moral transgression than men as seen in the book. Discuss how this idea not only plays out in the tales but also in the acceptance of the women gathered in the group of story tellers.

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay of at least two typewritten, double spaced pages on the topic, Why Story Telling is Becoming a Lost Art. Begin with the modern media today that involves being spoon fed stories in visual and interactive formats. Discuss the fact that people no longer sit together and relate tales they have made up or have heard. Speculate how different the situation of THE DECAMERON would have been if all the people in the group had iPods and PCs.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 816 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample