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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does the narrator say has happened to the Andrew Martin who was afraid of emotion?
(a) That me is dead.
(b) That me has been converted.
(c) That be has been reborn.
(d) That me has been reprogrammed.

2. Where does Winston Churchill tell the narrator he saw him earlier in the day?
(a) On Ari’s road.
(b) Near the narrator’s house.
(c) At a Texaco station.
(d) Outside Maggie’s dorm.

3. Where does the epigram come from at the end of the book?
(a) Einstein.
(b) Talking Heads.
(c) Copernicus.
(d) Feynman.

4. Why does Ari say that the idea of aliens can only be enjoyed as fiction?
(a) Because he does not think it is possible for there to be life elsewhere.
(b) Because there would be panic if people thought it was possible.
(c) Because the reality would push human beings out of the center of their own worldview.
(d) Because the crisis of science being wrong would destroy human knowledge.

5. Where does the narrator say that love stems from?
(a) The possibility of pain.
(b) The depths of grief.
(c) The heat of desire.
(d) The inevitability of death.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who tells Gulliver that his father was taken by aliens?

2. Why does the narrator’s replacement say he did not make his presence known when he broke into the house a few nights before?

3. Why does the narrator put his hand on the stove?

4. Where do the narrator and Maggie go from his office?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the narrator finally break the hosts’ hold on him?

2. What explanation does the narrator offer the hosts, for his inability to perform the task he was sent to perform?

3. What effect does the evening out at Hamlet have on Isobel?

4. How does the narrator defuse the humor and anxiety in his classroom, when he returns to teaching for the first time after being arrested for being naked?

5. How does the narrator characterize sex with Maggie?

6. What is the narrator about to tell Isobel when he sees Zӧe being harassed on the street?

7. What is the secret Ari has been keeping for Andrew Martin?

8. What is Ari’s reaction when the narrator tells him the truth of his origins?

9. How does the narrator find out about the presence of the replacement?

10. What does the narrator learn from the fall he takes with Gulliver?

(see the answer keys)

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