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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. In the italicized section of Chapter 2, in whose house is the girl living?

2. In the non-italicized section of Chapter 3, where is Oiler going on his next dive job?

3. In the non-italicized section of Chapter 2, what is the name of Bobby's lunch date's sister?

4. In the non-italicized section of Chapter 4, where was Bobby's father born?

5. In the non-italicized section of Chapter 3, what do the guys in suits tell Bobby about the plane that Bobby then tells Oiler about?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the job that Bobby and Red go on in Port Sulphur?

2. How does the Kid feel about almost all the acts that he brings up? How does he generally end them that gives a clue as to how he feels?

3. After talking to Oiler about Vietnam, what do the guys in suits want to know from Bobby about the downed plane?

4. Does Bobby find anything on his search of the cluster of islands?

5. What does Debussy go home to tell her mother about?

6. What is Oiler going to do on his dive job in Venezuela?

7. In Chapter 2, What does the Kid present to the girl?

8. At the beginning of Chapter 4, what appears in the night at the girl's window that makes her whisper Bobby's name?

9. What is peculiar about this downed plane?

10. Before the girl ends her life in the Wisconsin woods, who comes to see her a final time in her room in Chicago?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Why does the author include a lengthy section of conversation about math and physics? What is your experience reading this section? Does it have a connection to the rest of the story? What do you get out of reading a conversation like that, that is difficult for a lot of people to understand?

Essay Topic 2

What is your experience of this book? Do you love it? Do you hate it? Are you somewhere in between? Is it a difficult book? What are the parts that you find difficult? Are there parts that feel significant but difficult to decipher why they are significant? Do you think that is part of the author's intention? To make a book that most people are going to struggle with? How does that fit in with the themes of the actual story? How would you describe and explain this book and the story to someone who has not read it?

Essay Topic 3

There are guys in suits who question Bobby, and his bank account is frozen by the IRS. How do these elements serve the story? How do they serve the author's intentions for the story? How do they serve to suggest a life that is out of Bobby's control? How do they serve to show ideas of struggle and surrender? How do these ideas relate to the reader's world?

(see the answer keys)

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