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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 conclude after following Gulliver?

2. Where is Gulliver’s room in Andrew Martin’s house?

3. What trait does the narrator say makes up for the humans’ lack of physical attractiveness?

4. What does the narrator attribute Newton’s newfound liveliness to?

5. How does Isobel Martin characterize Andrew Martin’s relationship with Daniel Russell?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the narrator explain the Riemann Hypothesis, and what does he say Andrew Martin discovered about it?

2. How does the narrator define beauty for humans?

3. What does the narrator tell Newton?

4. What does the narrator learn about mathematicians that undermines his core beliefs about human beings?

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

6. What happens to the narrator for the first time in his life when Isobel gives him a sandwich?

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

8. How does the narrator characterize his relationship with his hosts, now that he is getting accustomed to Andrew Martin’s life?

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

10. What happens when the narrator calls Andrew Martin’s mother?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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?

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

Who is the audience for The Humans? What is the ideal reader for The Humans likely to think about the book’s main topics? How does this book try to affect the reader? What is it trying to teach him or her, or get him or her to do?

(see the answer keys)

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