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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. Why do the hosts tell the narrator to be careful?

2. How does the narrator define human life?

3. What does the note say, that the narrator finds blowing down from Gulliver’s room?

4. How do the narrator’s hosts characterize human beings?

5. What is the narrator moved by at Daniel Russell’s funeral?

Short Essay Questions

1. What gesture does Isobel Martin make at Daniel Russell’s funeral, and how does it affect the narrator?

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

3. What is the general tendency in the advice the narrator writes out for his son (and for the reader)?

4. How can the narrator tell that someone was in his house?

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

6. Why does the narrator say he did not try to patch things up with Isobel?

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

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

9. How does the narrator dispose of the replacement’s body?

10. What do the narrator’s hosts say when he tells them that he needs more time?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

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 3

Where is the climax of this book? Are there different climaxes? What questions does each climax resolve? What questions does each climax leave unanswered?

(see the answer keys)

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