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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What do the hosts say the narrator should not interfere with?
(a) The purity of reason.
(b) The unavoidable nature of pain and suffering.
(c) The inevitability of death for Isobel and Gulliver.
(d) The mathematical certainty of his mission.

2. How long is Isobel Martin’s book The Dark Ages?
(a) 1,253 pages.
(b) 251 pages.
(c) 917 pages.
(d) 469 pages.

3. What does the narrator say gives him the closest approximation of space?
(a) Debussy’s Clair de Lune.
(b) Tchaikovsky’s concertos.
(c) Palestrina’s psalms.
(d) Mozart’s Requiem.

4. What does the narrator say civilization results from, on Earth?
(a) Humans revising their instincts.
(b) Humans harnessing their instincts.
(c) Humans suppressing their instincts.
(d) Humans acting on their instincts.

5. What is the narrator’s favorite primer number?
(a) 7.
(b) 97.
(c) 13.
(d) 617.

6. Where does Isobel Martin say Andrew Martin’s psychological problems came from?
(a) Lack of maternal love.
(b) A childhood illness.
(c) A car accident.
(d) Original sin.

7. What does Isobel Martin say Andrew Martin is motivated by?
(a) Lust for power.
(b) Longing for glory.
(c) Need for approval.
(d) Fear of ridicule.

8. How does Isobel respond, when the narrator asks her if their marriage has been a bad one?
(a) She starts to laugh.
(b) She tells him to eat his sandwich.
(c) She gets up and leaves the room.
(d) She weeps and throws a glass at him.

9. What happened to cause Andrew Martin to stop liking his son?
(a) Gulliver got in a bad car wreck.
(b) Gulliver was expelled from school for arson.
(c) Gulliver was arrested for smoking pot.
(d) Gulliver ran away from home.

10. How does the narrator characterize the effect music has on him?
(a) It gives him the pleasure of counting.
(b) It gives him a strange, satisfying agitation.
(c) It gives him nostalgia for home.
(d) It gives him a satisfying blindness.

11. What does the narrator conclude after following Gulliver?
(a) That he is preparing for a weightlifting tournament.
(b) That he is dealing drugs.
(c) That he wants to avoid people.
(d) That he is suicidal.

12. What does the narrator look at, that gives him the feeling of not being troubled?
(a) A plant.
(b) A hillside.
(c) A crowd of people at a distance.
(d) The parking lot.

13. Why does the narrator say he does not like wearing clothes?
(a) He prefers glorious nakedness.
(b) They are embarrassing.
(c) They chafe.
(d) They are not geometrical enough.

14. What does the narrator find most appalling about humans’ appearance?
(a) Lips.
(b) Noses.
(c) Hair.
(d) Ears.

15. Where does Isobel go, leaving the narrator home alone?
(a) To teach a class at Cambridge.
(b) To pick up Gulliver from school.
(c) The supermarket.
(d) To visit her mother.

Short Answer Questions

1. What color does the narrator say Gulliver is dressed in, when he interrupts him on the phone?

2. What does the narrator say makes events important to people?

3. What does the narrator say about Andrew Martin, when he is being interrogated?

4. What trait does the narrator say makes up for the humans’ lack of physical attractiveness?

5. What deos the narrator say is the chief purpose of magazines?

(see the answer keys)

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