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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 was excused from tunnel duty due to size?

2. Why was Curt Lemon "all smiles" the next morning?

3. Where is the platoon at?

4. Why is Kiowa against camping at the pagoda?

5. What does Lee Strunk confess to Tim O'Brien in the morning?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did things start when Mary Anne first arrived, and how did they change?

2. What was the story for Mitchell Sander's moral of "Nobody listens?"

3. How are the terms of the death pact ultimately carried out?

4. Why do you think Curt's sister gives the response she does?

5. Who was Elroy Berdahl and what is his significance to the narrator?

6. How were Lieutenant Cross's tears misinterpreted after the death of Ted Lavender?

7. How does Lieutenant Cross resolve his responsibility in Ted Lavender's death?

8. Give an example of a stark contrast between how the men normally behave, and how the war changes their behavior.

9. What happens to make the platoon believe in the good luck provided by the pantyhose?

10. How would you describe Martha's "separate-but-together quality" her and Lieutenant Cross share? What does she send to represent this quality?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The "Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong" addresses the theme of acceptance and persons becoming a product of their environment. Explain the transformation Mary Anne Bell goes through from her arrival in Vietnam until her ultimate disappearance, and compare it to some other experience of characters or real-life people becoming the product of their environment.

Essay Topic 2

The concept of truth is challenged repeatedly in "The Things They Carried." Men tell embellished stories, exaggerate their own lives, and even the narrator casts doubt as to the honesty of the stories contained within the novel. What are your thoughts about the truth of "The Things They Carried" and why? Are there places you feel the accounting is accurate, and other places where the story has been stretched and skewed? What textual evidence leads you to these conclusions?

Essay Topic 3

Throughout the war stories in "The Things They Carried," the men carry and discuss a certain superstition for luck. Detail places in the novel where luck is given importance, and explore its role in explaining the events happening around the platoon. How do the men treat the concept of luck? How does the narrator/author wish the reader to interpret luck as it applies to the various characters?

(see the answer keys)

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