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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 did Eli tell Charlie he thought about the prospectors whose camp they passed on the way to Warm's claim?

2. What did Charlie tell Eli the Commodore had instructed him to do before killing Warm?

3. How did Warm catch Eli and Charlie off-guard as they approached Warm and Morris's camp at Warm's claim?

4. What was wrong with the coffee the prospector near Warm's claim made for Eli and Charlie?

5. What did Eli and Charlie realize about Warm and Morris as they talked to the prospectors in Part IV?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why was the man with the eye patch who ran the restaurant Warm used to frequent so upset that Warm had left him out of his plans?

2. What did the Sisters brothers learn from reading Morris's journal?

3. What did Charlie and Eli say to Warm while he was pointing his gun at them?

4. After reading Morris's journal, why do both Charlie and Eli have misgivings about going through with killing Warm for the Commodore?

5. How did the Sisters brothers eventually get the hotel manager to give them Morris's journal?

6. What did the hotel manager tell the Sisters brothers Henry Morris had left behind, and why were they so desperate to get their hands on it?

7. Why were there so many abandoned boats in the harbor at San Francisco?

8. What did Eli see as the brothers were leaving San Francisco, and how did he feel about the city as they left?

9. What kind of game was the man with the patch engaging in when Eli and Charlie found him in his restaurant?

10. What did Eli tell Charlie about their work together at their fancy dinner at The Golden Pearl in San Francisco?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What do the various unnamed prospectors the Sisters Brothers meet on their journey reveal about life on the U.S. West Coast at the time of the California Gold Rush? Write an essay analyzing how deWitt uses the prospectors to help establish the setting of the story.

Essay Topic 2

Describe the effect that reading Morris's journal, and the revelations about Morris's plans it revealed, in San Francisco had on Eli and Charlie. How do their different reactions to the journal's contents highlight their character differences?

Essay Topic 3

Eli describes his working with Charlie, Eli and Morris collecting gold from the River of Light as the happiest he would ever be as long as he lives. Afterwards, he comes to believe that men are "not meant to have access to this kind of satisfaction" (294). What do you think Eli means by this statement and what happens after this point in the novel that makes him feel that way?

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