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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. Who paid for dinner before Jane’s event?

2. What did Fred Phelps’ family call Jane Gordon?

3. Where did Darren get a drink on his walk home?

4. How does Jonathan say his family lived while they were abroad?

5. How long does the narrator tell the reader it will take Darren to make the walk he thinks will be two hours?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the importance of the painted tissue box?

2. What explanation does Jonathan give for why his parents and the diplomats drank so much in Taiwan?

3. What motivated Darren to throw the cue ball at the girl?

4. How does the narrator characterize the interaction between Adam and Jane and the Phelpses on the way to Jane’s keynote address?

5. What is the social scene Darren hung out in?

6. How did the time at the roller rink return seven years later in the basement at Jason’s party?

7. What happened to Darren at Clinton Lake?

8. How does Jonathan describe the conditions where he grew up in Taiwan?

9. What observations does Adam make about American culture when he is in the supermarket with his mother and grandmother?

10. Where did Darren walk to, and where did he end up, before he got a ride home?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Where is the emotional heart of The Topeka School? Is it centered in power, or meanness or fairness or kindness? What are the main centers of the novel, if there is not just one? What is the relationship between the emotional centers of The Topeka School? How does the book define the relationship between its centers?

Essay Topic 2

When is The Topeka School most itself? What is its characteristic passage, or moment? What makes that moment or passage the most representative of the book as a whole? Are there any places where the book seems to depart from its typical self, as if to become a different book?

Essay Topic 3

What are the strengths and weaknesses of Ben Lerner’s representation of Darren, the developmentally delayed ex-student? Does this portrait ring true, or does it sound false, or caricaturish? What work does Darren’s character do for the narrative? How does his presence reveal the personalities of the other characters?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,054 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample