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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 this book is about?

2. What does the narrator say everything is, on Earth?

3. How does the narrator characterize dogs?

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

5. What does the narrator say is the most significant of the human languages he will have to master?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who does the narrator meet in the cafeteria in the jail?

2. How does the narrator characterize his relationship with human music?

3. How does Haig characterize the marriage between Andrew and Isobel Martin?

4. What does the narrator tell Newton?

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

6. What is the narrator’s relationship with pain like?

7. What is the importance of prime numbers for the narrator?

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

9. What is the narrator’s first experience of food and drink like?

10. How does Andrew Martin characterize his discovery in the introduction the narrator reads?

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

Who in today’s world holds the view that humans are greedy and violent? What policies do the parties who believe this propose? Who in today’s world believes that humans are flawed but basically good? What policies do the parties who believe this propose? How does The Humans answer this divergence of opinions?

Essay Topic 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

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