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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 is primarily focused on appearances early in Section 2?

2. What is the first speaker musing on at the beginning of Section 3?

3. What is the name of the cook at school?

4. How does Bernard characterize his last day at school?

5. To what does the narrator compare the sound of the waves at the end of Section 3's beginning?

Short Essay Questions

1. Characterize how Louis expresses his differences from Neville and Bernard in Section 3.

2. Overall, what should the reader take away as most significant from Section 1?

3. How are Jinny and Rhoda characterized in Section 3?

4. Which of the characters appears most at ease in Section 3, and why?

5. Why is Susan so distressed after she saw Jinny kiss Louis?

6. What is the significance of having each character introduce themselves by identifying a specific image in Section 1?

7. Describe the fears, or the lack of fears, that the characters articulate in Section 3.

8. Describe the boys' experiences in chapel while at school in Section 2.

9. What is the major event that occurs in Section 4, and why is it significant?

10. Which of the boys seems to have the strongest attachment to Percival? Please provide some evidence in your answer.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay which compares and contrasts any two of the sections' introductory vignettes. Pick one vignette which is typical of the whole novel, and one which is atypical (there are two in particular). What separates these vignettes? Include as many reasons as you can think of as to why Woolf would change her method at such a point in the text.

Essay Topic 2

Evaluate the novel's final image. It is an appropriate one? What is the significance of both the waves as they appear in these vignettes, and as a title? Are there other instances of waves appearing in this novel, rather than in their literal form? There are many instances where a character's interior monologue describes something as being wave-like. Does the novel structurally parallel waves?

Essay Topic 3

When Jinny kisses Louis, only Susan is privy to the event, and this event should have only affected these three characters. But the loss of innocence pervades the whole novel. Write an essay which examines the theme of the loss of innocence, beginning with an analysis of "The Kiss" and its effect on the group.

(see the answer keys)

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