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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 most deeply affected by the significant news in Section 5?

2. What does Neville conclude at the end of his Section 6 monologue?

3. What is most notable about Jinny's Section 6 monologue?

4. In Section 7, which two people does Susan name as those she "thinks sometimes of"?

5. In Section 8, who oddly compares herself to a dog?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is significant about how Rhoda appears in Section 7?

2. What is different about Susan in Section 7?

3. Why doesn't Percival's death have a strong effect on Bernard in Section 5?

4. Describe how Jinny appears in Section 6.

5. What is most notable about Section 5's opening description and why?

6. In Section 6, we encounter the three character who were omitted from the previous section. Describe their places in life at this point.

7. How is Section 6's opening description distinct, and what should the reader expect from the rest of the section?

8. Elaborate on what Rhoda identifies as the problems the characters have faced in their lives in Section 8.

9. Which image becomes more dominant in Section 8's introductory vignette, and what do you think it signifies?

10. Why is it significant that Bernard is not the first speaker in Section 5?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Using ample textual evidence, agree or disagree with the statement that Woolf succeeds in authentically depicting the individual's quest for understanding of both self and the world around him or her. Develop an argument supported by the text.

Essay Topic 2

Compare and contrast the characters of Louis and Bernard, who seem to constantly sway between admiration and jealousy toward each other. Why do they pursue such separate life paths? What leads them to their major decisions? How do they find themselves at the novel's conclusion? What makes them arguably the two most similar characters in the text?

Essay Topic 3

Why does Bernard revel in solitude at the end of the text? What does this say about him, and what does it say about the group as a whole? Do you think there is any evidence that Woolf is attempting to create a more subversive message, one that tarnishes the value of unified groups and instead expresses that the kind of unity the characters had as children was unattainable ever since Jinny kissed Louis? It would also be prudent to consider Rhoda's death for this question.

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