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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. In contrast to her brothers' bar mitzvahs, Klara's bat mitzvah takes place not individually but in a group of how many girls?
(a) 3.
(b) 10.
(c) 6.
(d) 7.

2. What kind of job does Simon find when he and Klara arrive in San Francisco?
(a) Valet.
(b) Cook.
(c) Bouncer.
(d) Go-go dancer.

3. The Hindu family in the Gold family's building calls the fortune teller a "rishika" (5), which means a what?
(a) An imp.
(b) A seer.
(c) A savant.
(d) A spirit.

4. Before Gertie met Saul, it is said by the narrator that she had wanted to be a what?
(a) A housewife.
(b) A ballerina.
(c) A pilot.
(d) An intellectual.

5. What is Klara's reply when Raj asks her the secret of her Jaws of Life performance?
(a) Pray.
(b) Just hold on.
(c) Count to ten before letting go.
(d) Give the rope a tweak at the last minute.

Short Answer Questions

1. Whose shift does Simon cover when he "wakes up with a red dot on the white of his left eye"? (86)

2. In what year does the novel's prologue begin?

3. Daniel tells his siblings that the fortune teller is rumored to be able to tell a person what information?

4. In what type of venue does Klara NOT perform her act during her early days as a magician?

5. What does Raj do for a living when Klara runs into him again after ten years?

Short Essay Questions

1. When the narrator reveals that Raj has "big plans" (113) for overhauling Klara's act, what kind of changes does the narrator depict?

2. How does the novel's setting within the prologue affect the events of the narrative?

3. How is the theme of guilt depicted within Gertie's feelings about her son after his death?

4. What is the symbolism of the sequins that turn up everywhere inside Klara's home?

5. How did the Gold children's maternal grandmother die and why are the children adults before they find out this information?

6. How many years pass between the first knock Klara believes Simon is using to communicate with her from the afterlife and the second knock she hears?

7. What evidence does the author provide for the claim that the Gold children in 1969 "are siblings, this summer, in a way they never will be again" (4)?

8. How does the author depict Simon's mixed feelings about his mother's decision to relinquish him at the police station?

9. How is repetition employed within the opening passage of Part Two:Proteus and to what effect?

10. The narrator takes pains to explain that Klara does not share her magic with people in order to deceive them. What is her true reason?

(see the answer keys)

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