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

2. What years are covered in Part One, Chapter One, when Simon's story is focused upon?

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

4. What is the name of the policeman who roughs up Simon outside of the police station?

5. What is the name of the Gold siblings' paternal grandfather?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

4. 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)?

5. How do the Purp employees and owners react to the news of Harvey Milk's assassination and how do they take action?

6. Who is the first of the Gold siblings to hear about the fortune teller and what action does this sibling then take?

7. What is Robert's reaction to the AIDS epidemic and how does it differ from Simon's?

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

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Analyze the novel The Immortalists from an Existential perspective. What elements of life does it suggest hold the most meaning and why?

Essay Topic 2

Analyze the interplay between the resolution of the novel and one of the novel's main messages. How does the author make connections between these elements and how does their juxtaposition help the author get across one main message of the novel?

Essay Topic 3

What is the novel's message concerning the link between fate and free will?

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This section contains 1,311 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample