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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 camps are the Eastern boys sent to?

2. Who does the Narrator meet in East Berlin that is forbidden to publish?

3. What is vandalized consistently outside the Narrator's building?

4. Who owns the building in which the Narrator lives?

5. Who among the jumpers goes West to become a lumberjack?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the evening of music that Pommerer and the Narrator take in at the Hall of Young Talent like?

2. How does the Narrator describe Robert in Chapter 1?

3. How does the Narrator view the East from the S-Bahn train station?

4. What does the Wall symbolize to the West Germans?

5. What does the woman with bulging eyeballs who visits Pommerer have to say about solidarity?

6. Describe how the East and West Germans are different at the Schönefield Airport.

7. How does Schneider uses the analogy of lovers to explain the German lack of interest in reunification?

8. What do neighbors in the German countryside gather to discuss that the Narrator observes?

9. What is the story that Pommerer tells the Narrator about the Willy boys and their friend Lutz concerning the Wall?

10. How do Pommerer and the Narrator differ on their views regarding East and West Germany and change?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Compare and contrast Lena with Frieda. How are these women similar or different? What gender roles do they follow and what do they oppose? How is Lena's thinking representative of her upbringing? What does she like and dislike about the West? What about Frieda?

Essay Topic 2

Pommerer and The Narrator are two of the most active characters in discussing their social and political beliefs.

Part 1) What is their relationship? How do they co-exist and how do they interact? What is similar about them and what is different?

Part 2) What are some events that Pommerer had a direct influence upon? What are some events that The Narrator had a direct influence upon?

Part 3) Which character offers support or sympathy to people that attempt to jump the Wall? Which one is stronger and why?

Essay Topic 3

Schneider powerfully portrays the theme of mental conditioning in Berlin. West Berlin residents consider themselves superior to their neighbors in the East. How are the Germans conditioned? What do they believe? What are they afraid of? Examine this theme in relationship to the quote by Schneider, "Where does the state end and the self begin? How far are we conditioned by the place we are born in?"

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