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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. What reason does Klara state for not calling the family to notify them of Simon's illness?
(a) It was not her right.
(b) She had not known the depth of Simon's illness.
(c) Simon had begged her not to.
(d) She did not want to worry Gertie.

2. In what year does the novel's prologue begin?
(a) 1982.
(b) 1978.
(c) 1960.
(d) 1969.

3. How old is Daniel when his father Saul dies of heart failure?
(a) 16.
(b) 26.
(c) 30.
(d) 20.

4. How old does Raj say he was when he came from India to the United States?
(a) 10.
(b) 18.
(c) 6.
(d) 14.

5. Whom does Gertie coddle the most out of all of her children?
(a) Klara.
(b) Varya.
(c) Simon.
(d) Daniel.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who steps in and stops the policeman's harassment of Simon outside of the police station?

2. What is Klara's reply when Raj asks her the secret of her Jaws of Life performance?

3. What is the title of the homemade flier Simon and his friends see taped to a window?

4. What do Klara and Varya find inside the lacquered box in Gertie's lingerie drawer?

5. The Hindu family in the Gold family's building calls the fortune teller a "rishika" (5), which means a what?

Short Essay Questions

1. 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?

2. 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?

3. What differences between Robert and Simon does the author depict as those that drive Simon to cheat on Robert?

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

5. What does the narrator mean when describing Simon's impression of the Castro district as being like a "fallout shelter" (79)?

6. What do the Gold children bring to the fortune teller as payment for her services and why?

7. Which of the Gold siblings is the most apprehensive about the prospect of visiting the fortune teller and why?

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 an allusion to the story of Icarus used within the author's depiction of Simon's progression toward the date of his foretold death?

10. What is the significance of Klara's feelings about the phenomenon of red tide?

(see the answer keys)

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