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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 Nassun call Schaffa to shake him out of the stupor he enters after she powers the Station?

2. What agreement do Danel and the other soldiers accept after one soldier defies Ykka?

3. Who attacks the people of Castrima within the stone forest?

4. What did Kelenli do with the tuners before their journey?

5. Where does Hoa take Essun after revealing that a stone eater wants to eat Nassun?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Hoa’s prison in Syl Anagist require no guards?

2. Where is Hoa while he narrates the novel?

3. What happened to Essun’s arm before the beginning of the novel?

4. What’s unusual about the building Kelenli leads the tuners to during their first lesson?

5. How does Schaffa explain his cruelty towards the orogenes when he and Nassun discuss the issue on their way to the Station?

6. Who does Ykka take Essun to see after Essun first wakes up from her coma?

7. Why must the orogenes be controlled, according to Schaffa?

8. How does Hoa describe magic in Syl Anagist: Four?

9. What created the obsidian column at the heart of the dead civ in Old Man's Pucker?

10. Why does Schaffa warn the orogenes from Found Moon to flee the next comm they visit if the Season ends?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Explain the disagreement between the stone eaters Hoa and Steel, as well as the factors that drive them to reconcile. How does their current disagreement reflect their relationship as tuners in Syl Anagist? What disagreements may remain even after peace is made with Father Earth?

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay explaining the importance of fragmentation in the novel’s narrative structure. Why does Hoa shift so much between eras and points of view? How does the fragmentation of the narrative reflect the fragmentation between the characters? How does this fragmentation shape our understanding of the story?

Essay Topic 3

Jemisin describes a society where characters must depend on each other daily to survive. Write an essay examining the role interdependence plays in the novel. Provide a working definition of interdependence and analyze how it both creates and resolves conflict between characters.

(see the answer keys)

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