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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. In Chapter 12, how many candles did Ester use when reading Augustine and Descartes in the night?

2. In Chapter 8, where did Ester find her brother?

3. Why does Helen say that Rabbi Mendes had a scribe?

4. What is the date of the letter in Chapter 13 that is a cross-written document?

5. In what languages did Dror sing to Helen in Chapter 11 when they went to Jaffa?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Aaron look like when Helen sees him in the rare manuscripts room in Chapter 15?

2. What advice did Mendes offer in Chapter 4?

3. In Chapter 14, what did Mendes say about Spinoza?

4. What did the letter propose that Ester burned in Chapter 12?

5. How does Helen learn about the papers from the seventeenth century?

6. In Chapter 8, what did Issac tell Ester when she asked him to return to the Rabbi's household?

7. What did Mendes and ben Israel's father suffer together?

8. According to Mary in Chapter 16, under what circumstances might Ester marry?

9. In Chapter 11, how did Helen come to buy the Masada painting?

10. How does Helen learn that Mendes's scribe was a woman?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Masada was the site of a battle between Jews and Romans. What happened at Masada? What does Masada represent in the novel?

Essay Topic 2

Aaron and Helen do not get along at first. How would you describe their relationship at first? How does their relationship change? What changes their relationship?

Essay Topic 3

Aaron is a selfish young man who is not careful in his relationships with women. How would you describe Aaron and who he is at the beginning of the novel? What changes Aaron? How does he change?

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