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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 item does Klara place upon each table on the night of her performance at the Cabaret theater called the Committee?
(a) A glass of water.
(b) A rope.
(c) A handkerchief.
(d) A business card.

2. How old is Varya upon the opening of the novel's prologue?
(a) 16.
(b) 10.
(c) 8.
(d) 13.

3. When Simon is promoted from understudy to another position within the ballet company, what position does he achieve?
(a) Full company member.
(b) Featured member.
(c) Repertory member.
(d) Company captain.

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

5. Daniel tells his siblings that the fortune teller is rumored to be able to tell a person what information?
(a) The number of children a person will have.
(b) The day a person will die.
(c) The joys that will happen in a person's life.
(d) The description of a person's future spouse's face.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Klara do with the lacquered box once Gertie appears furious at its absence?

2. In contrast to her brothers' bar mitzvahs, Klara's bat mitzvah takes place not individually but in a group of how many girls?

3. What is NOT one way in which Simon describes his father Saul?

4. What date does the narrator finally reveal as the one foretold to Simon by the fortune teller?

5. What is NOT listed among the American events the Gold children are excluded from due to their youth?

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

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

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

5. Compare Varya's ideas about fortune telling with Ruby Singh's.

6. How does Robert's story about his friend Dante demonstrate the themes of violence and hate?

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

8. 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?

9. Describe the significance of Simon's dream about salmon and how it relates to his mindset at the time of his dream.

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

(see the answer keys)

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