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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 are dry-balls?
(a) They are the biologists who study dead, preserved animals.
(b) They are the dried coconut husks used by the local children to play ball.
(c) They are the dried cotton balls brought to sea as part of the medicine kit.
(d) They are the medicines given to the expedition party by the locals.

2. What does Steinbeck notice about the sense of time of the local people of Cabo San Lucas?
(a) There is nothing different about their sense of time and that of the indigents'.
(b) It is reversed, sleeping during the day and working during the night.
(c) It seems so different from their own.
(d) They seem to all walk faster, indicating that they have a faster sense of time.

3. On March 18, where does the expedition party end up going when a wind rises before they were able to anchor?
(a) Pescadero Point.
(b) Marina Bay.
(c) San Diego Bay.
(d) Magdalena Bay.

4. What is a Sally Lightfoot crab?
(a) It is a small crab with giant feet, and the name is meant as a private joke among residents of Cabo San Lucas.
(b) It is a female crab with a very unique tattoo on its shell, shaped like a foot.
(c) It is a female crab which clings to people's feet.
(d) It is a particularly agile, small crab which seems to elude every attempt for its capture.

5. Where is Cabo San Lucas?
(a) It is at the northern tip of San Diego Bay.
(b) It is at the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula.
(c) It is at the southern tip of San Diego Bay.
(d) It is at the southern tip of Magdalena Bay.

Short Answer Questions

1. What do members of the party feel when they are the one manning the wheel?

2. What do Tiny and Sparky do while they are on watch?

3. What happens to the porpoises, as observed by Steinbeck and Ricketts?

4. What is the greater purpose for which the author wants to use his observations of the activities of the biological creatures?

5. What instrument does Raul use, which Steinbeck and Ricketts buy from him?

Short Essay Questions

1. Briefly explain how Steinbeck explains teleological and non-teleological thinking. Relate the two on the previous discussion about employment and unemployment.

2. Briefly state the discussions made by Steinbeck and Ricketts on different ways of thinking, particularly looking at the society and the balance that is maintained all the time, as specified by their given example on employment.

3. Describe Tony and make some assumptions on the way he looks.

4. What are some examples of Steinbeck's personification of marine life?

5. Describe the activities of the expedition party on the eve of their departure. Speculate on the feelings of the team members on this particular night.

6. What are the recordings in The Log from the Sea of Cortez? Enumerate as many as you can.

7. Briefly discuss how Tony's personality is impressed upon the team members as they take turns manning the wheel.

8. How does Steinbeck compare staying on course at sea to achieving a goal in life?

9. Explain Steinbeck's remark on the contrast between Tiny's reaction to the death of the sea turtle and that of a scientist's.

10. Build on Steinbeck's theory of why the expedition members do not want to catch and cook porpoises.

(see the answer keys)

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