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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. How many members sit on the World Scythe Council that governs scythedom?

2. What profession does Slayd assign to his fictional parents?

3. To which of the following does Anastasia compare driving a car?

4. Tyger’s note that “Oh, man, this is the best news ever!” (62) is an example of which of the following?

5. Purity’s comment that “We’re gonna mark the world like animals do, and leave behind a scent that’ll never go away” (198) offers an example of which of the following?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Munira carry the nickname among the library clerks that she does?

2. Scythe Brahms observes that “no one should see a scythe so indisposed and live” when a couple sees him bestrewn with rotting food and helps him; instead, he gives them immunity from execution and sends them on their way (11-12). How does the passage serve to reinforce his personal authority?

3. Xenocrates, “the most important scythe in the region,” notes that he “enjoyed the robe—except on the occasions that its weight became an issue” (19). While he remarks on an example relating to swimming in the note, there is a symbolic meaning to the comment. What is it, and how does it appear?

4. Why is it irony, as the Thunderhead remarks, “that with no body, the world itself becomes [its] body” (75)?

5. What is the irony in Greyson’s unsavory cousin having “iron chains surgically implanted in his wrists” (102)?

6. What reasons does the Thunderhead give for the inefficiencies in the Office of Unsavory Affairs?

7. Why does Anastasia feel the need to call upon Greyson after his denigration to unsavory status, per her report?

8. What reasons does Xenocrates rehearse for visiting his bathhouse more frequently as the year draws to a close?

9. What reasons does the Thunderhead give for finding employment for all people who want it?

10. The novel notes Rowan’s work “while others prepared for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday” (53), as well as marking other holidays throughout the year (Christmas is mentioned, among others). What does the denotation of what holidays are celebrated suggest about the culture of the narrative milieu?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Consider the injuries sustained by people in the attack on Scythes Curie and Anastasia in the theater—and from which they are revived and healed. What effects would sustaining such injuries, with awareness of them and of recovery from them, likely have on those who suffer them? What in the text suggests those effects? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 2

It is remarked that the rebuilt Great Library of Alexandria serves as a repository for journals the scythes are required to keep throughout their lifetimes of service in “leather-bound parchment volumes” (146). What function would such journals and their repository serve within the narrative milieu? What in the text suggests as much? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

The Thunderhead remarks that “Goddard is the most recent in a long line of scythes who look up into the night sky and see not the stars, but the darkness between them” (383). What does it mean to focus on that darkness? What in the text and in experience says so, and how does it say it?

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