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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. How does Jonathan characterize the sound of adults’ voices while his family lived abroad?

2. What was Jane told made her Christmas gift special?

3. When Adam understood the language of products, what did he understand them to be saying?

4. How did Adam’s friends exercise their aggression through language?

5. How did Jane defuse Adam’s meltdown when he could not reach his girlfriend?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Adam’s relationship with Peter Evanson?

2. In what condition did Darren wake up at Clinton Lake?

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

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

5. How did Adam lose his L-D debate?

6. What is the difference between extemp and Lincoln-Douglass debate?

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

8. How does Adam characterize his circle’s relationship with Darren?

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

10. In what ways did Adam and his friend shift their aggression into the realm of language?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Identify the most important plot points in The Topeka School. What is at stake in each of these moments? What possibilities do these moments present, and how are those possibilities channeled into specific actions or events? How does the plot chart its course among other alternative or possible plots?

Essay Topic 2

How does The Topeka School render the difference between east coast and Midwest cultures in the U.S.? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each culture, in the characters’ experiences? Does the book’s heart live more in one culture than the other?

Essay Topic 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,175 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample