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 does the narrator say is the one condition under which humans tolerate mad people?

2. How does the narrator characterize the pattern Riemann discovered for the first hundred thousand or so prime numbers?

3. What does the narrator say human news is about?

4. What interrupts the discussion the narrator is having with Isobel about Andrew Martin’s relationship with his mother?

5. How does Matt Haig represent the hosts’ speech?

Short Essay Questions

1. What happens in the narrator’s interview with Andrew Martin’s wife Isobel?

2. How is the narrator ultimately captured by the police?

3. How does the narrator ultimately get himself out of prison?

4. How does the narrator characterize life in the world he comes from?

5. What does the narrator tell Newton?

6. What makes the narrator’s narrative so funny?

7. How does the narrator characterize Andrew Martin’s relationship with Gulliver, his son?

8. What does Gulliver tell the narrator about the Martins’ household?

9. What does the narrator tell Daniel Russell before he kills him?

10. Who are the main characters the narrator introduces at the beginning of the novel?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Identify the source of the humor Matt Haig employs in The Humans. What strategies does he use to get the reader laughing, and how does he vary his technique so that he defines a range of comic possibilities? What is his comic territory?

Essay Topic 2

Which is more important in The Humans, math or poetry? Are they opposed to each other? Are they complementary? How does the book define the relation between math and poetry?

Essay Topic 3

How would The Humans be different if it were narrated by a female mathematician? How might the humor change? How might the moral vision change?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 908 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample