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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 does the General commission Jacob to do?

2. Who does Joseph take Naila to meet?

3. What town becomes the capital of Lusaka?

4. Who is Joseph?

5. Who gets into a fist fight?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who takes over the SOTP rally?

2. What happens when Thandi meets Agnes Banda?

3. Who teaches Jacob to read?

4. What does Thandi's husband spend the first few years of the new millenium doing?

5. Where do Jacob, Naila, and Joseph spend most of their nights together?

6. Who does Thandi discover living in one of Lee's houses?

7. What happens to the dam in the end?

8. What is "The Vulture"?

9. Who comes home to Zambia to die?

10. What boy does Joseph meet while at One Hundred Years Clinic?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay in which you examine the significance of the The Virus and the vaccine. What political, cultural, or socioeconomical thinking is associated with these topics throughout the novel? In what ways are they discussed, and by whom? Who is affected by them, and why? Use evidence from the text to explain your thoughts.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay in which you examine the structure of the novel. What is the effect of writing this particular story this way? What does the presence of a third-person, omniscient narrator and chapter endings narrated by a swarm of mosquitoes do to propel the narrative forward, or emphasize important themes? Use evidence from the text to explain your thoughts.

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay in which you examine the concept of land/land ownership in the novel, particularly as it pertains to settler colonialism in Africa throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In what ways does this issue present itself in the novel, and how does the novel's characters interact with or interrogate this concept? Use evidence from the text to explain your thoughts.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 543 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample