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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Isobel’s alter ego in her novel say will happen if she solves the mystery of her marriage?
(a) She will have to renew her vows.
(b) She will need to solve herself.
(c) The love will end.
(d) The marriage will enter a crisis.

2. How does Maggie characterize the experience of being human?
(a) Being told about gods you cannot hear from.
(b) Being shown a life you cannot live.
(c) Being money you cannot spend.
(d) Being given a car you cannot drive.

3. What does Ari compare prime numbers to?
(a) Centaurs.
(b) Sirens.
(c) Harpies.
(d) Cyclops.

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

5. What does the narrator tell Ari when Ari comes to visit him after he is attacked?
(a) That he has broken off with Maggie.
(b) That football is boring.
(c) That he is from another planet.
(d) That he did solve the Riemann Hypothesis.

6. How does the narrator characterize the pleasure he feels while making love with Maggie?
(a) Incandescent.
(b) Phosphorescent.
(c) Spiritual.
(d) Anatomical.

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

8. How does the narrator define human life?
(a) An act of impossible odds.
(b) An act of defiance.
(c) An act of submission.
(d) An act of effrontery.

9. What does the narrator offer the hosts as a justification for not killing Isobel and Gulliver?
(a) He has a chance of truly seeing them.
(b) Their innocence will stain the Vonnadorians’ consciences.
(c) Their deaths will arouse suspicions.
(d) Their deaths are mathematically superfluous.

10. What is the narrator’s response when he and Gulliver see the boy who bullied Gulliver?
(a) He protects Gulliver from the boy.
(b) He hypnotizes the boy and adjusts his mind.
(c) He turns around so the boy doesn’t see them.
(d) He challenges the boy to fight.

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

12. Why does the narrator put his hand on the stove?
(a) To make himself feel something.
(b) To burn away the hosts’ ability to listen to his life.
(c) To show Gulliver that he is willing to suffer for him.
(d) To evoke Isobel’s sympathy.

13. What does Gulliver say it is like to be Andrew Martin’s son?
(a) Being powerless.
(b) Being broke.
(c) A black eye.
(d) Shoes too small.

14. How does the narrator try to blunt the replacement’s power?
(a) By cutting his left hand off.
(b) By turning the TV on.
(c) By sitting him on the purple couch.
(d) By taking him outside.

15. What part of the night sky does the narrator say affects humans?
(a) Its lifelessness.
(b) Its darkness.
(c) Its orderliness.
(d) The brightness of the stars.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who is Nat?

2. What does the narrator say has happened to the Andrew Martin who was afraid of emotion?

3. What does Kierkegaard say a man must pass through, to arrive at the perfection of everything human?

4. What does the narrator say he found terrifying about making love with Maggie?

5. How does the narrator know that someone has been in the house while he and Isobel slept?

(see the answer keys)

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