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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. What color is the garbage truck Howie was driving behind?

2. Howie connected learning how to tie shoes with a couplet by _____.

3. Howie believes some brain cells need to die in order to gain _______.

4. Who in Howie's life is allergic to milk?

5. An image of __________ gave Howie the idea for his deodorant discovery.

Short Essay Questions

1. What are Howie's thoughts on shopping bags?

2. What are Howie's observations about shoes and feet at work?

3. Why does Howie consider the purchase of a rubber stamp to be one of his advancements?

4. What is Howie's reaction to his shoelace breaking at work?

5. Howie does Howie's shoelace break?

6. What observations does Howie make about straws while he was at Papa Gino's?

7. What does Howie consider to be his sixth major advancement in life?

8. What is Howie's feeling about ice cube trays?

9. What point is Howie trying to make in his footnote about doorknobs?

10. What does Howie mean by "the rule of nostalgia"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What profound insight does Howie achieve through his stream of consciousness while riding the subway? Could he have had this same insight without the constant stream of trivial thoughts? Is his realization truly profound, transcending the triviality of his mundane thoughts?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the aesthetic distance created in the novel and the reader's experience of spending the entire time inside Howie's thoughts.

Essay Topic 3

What is the climax of the book in Chapter 14? How does this tiny moment define the entire novel?

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