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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does the narrator say is the biggest act of bravery or madness a human being can commit?
(a) To love.
(b) To move.
(c) To change.
(d) To grieve.

2. Why does the narrator want to replace the purple sofa?
(a) The fabric smells funny.
(b) The cushions are too soft.
(c) The purple color is painful to him.
(d) The texture reminds of him of Daniel Russell’s skin.

3. Why does the narrator say he did not tell Gulliver to stop, when Gulliver started to beat him?
(a) He wanted to see what human violence was like.
(b) He could not breathe with Gulliver’s hand on his throat.
(c) He was willing to be killed rather than let Isobel and Gulliver be killed.
(d) He wanted to make it look like self-defense.

4. What is the narrator moved by at Daniel Russell’s funeral?
(a) His own artificial tears.
(b) The mourners’ beautiful singing.
(c) Isobel’s generosity toward Tabitha.
(d) Tabitha’s genuine grief.

5. What does the narrator hold onto, in the ambulance, when he lets go of everything else in the world?
(a) His gifts.
(b) Isobel’s hand.
(c) Newton’s leash.
(d) Gulliver’s guitar pick.

6. What does the narrator say is as universal as oxygen?
(a) Imagination.
(b) Love.
(c) Grief.
(d) Loneliness.

7. What does the narrator say must be a chief cause of sexual relationships on earth?
(a) The thickness of the atmosphere.
(b) The shape of human bodies.
(c) The dark night sky.
(d) The strength of the planet’s magnetic field.

8. How does the narrator convince Gulliver to trust him and to kill the replacement?
(a) He gets Newton to show Gulliver he trusts him.
(b) He invokes the brown leaf he turned green.
(c) He tells him he knows who sent the replacement.
(d) He tells him to think of Dordogne.

9. How does the narrator try to get Gulliver to kill himself?
(a) By falling down the stairs.
(b) By taking pills.
(c) By slitting his wrists.
(d) By hanging himself.

10. How does Ari characterize the duration of human history?
(a) The moment of a sneeze.
(b) The flush of a toilet.
(c) The blink of an eye.
(d) The length of a fart.

11. What starts to astonish the narrator after he becomes human?
(a) The impossibility of escape from Earth.
(b) The ubiquity of threats to human life.
(c) The improbability of human life.
(d) The inevitability of his suffering and death.

12. How does the narrator say he became human?
(a) By showing discipline.
(b) By showing defiance.
(c) By betraying reason.
(d) By marrying reason to emotion.

13. What does the narrator say when Isobel describes the early days of her courtship with Andrew Martin?
(a) Those people are dead, now.
(b) He must have loved you.
(c) That was a lifetime ago.
(d) I really loved you then.

14. What does the narrator say he always needed, instead of emotions?
(a) Strict commands.
(b) Directives from superiors.
(c) Teamwork.
(d) Mathematical truth.

15. What is the narrator’s suggestion to Isobel, regarding Gulliver?
(a) Discipline him.
(b) Send him to boarding school.
(c) Accept him.
(d) Punish him.

Short Answer Questions

1. How long does Isobel say it has been, since she and her husband talked as openly as they talk after Hamlet?

2. Why does Ari say that the idea of aliens can only be enjoyed as fiction?

3. What is the narrator’s response when he and Gulliver see the boy who bullied Gulliver?

4. How does the narrator demonstrate his powers to Gulliver?

5. How does the narrator characterize the pleasure he feels while making love with Maggie?

(see the answer keys)

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