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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 much of her body does Scythe Rand report was burned?

2. What title is given the overall leader of the scythes?

3. How many times does Goddard kill Rowan during the latter’s captivity?

4. How many unsavories are part of the plot to assassinate Scythes Curie and Anastasia in the theater?

5. What is the collective noun for a group of scythes?

Short Essay Questions

1. What overall form does Endura take?

2. What does the Thunderhead aver that it does not know?

3. What is the persistent remark made by Grandslayers about their Seats of Consideration?

4. What reasons does Scythe Curie give for her antipathy towards Tonists (239)?

5. Briefly detail the symbolism in Xenocrates’s predecessor as Grandslayer.

6. What does Rowan consider the major point of his conversations with the Thunderhead?

7. What reason does Mendoza give for darkness in Greyson’s bedroom?

8. What is the primary rhetorical appeal made in Anastasia’s oration to the Grandslayers during the inquest, and why is it the primary appeal?

9. How does Xenocrates die? What occasions the death?

10. Briefly detail the symbolism of Scythe Anastasia’s inquest being scheduled for hearing on April 1.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

As Greyson begins his stint as an unsavory, he relates a number of conditions under which the unsavory must live: they are disallowed direct contact with the Thunderhead, they have probation officers with whom they must check in, they receive discourteous service from automata, and they suffer under social stigma. Of them, which is the worst in the context of the novel? What in the text suggests it is so? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 2

Tyger remarks that the language of Texas in the novel is “like listening to Shakespeare” (60). Follow the simile and its implications: what does it mean for Texan speech to be like Shakespearean, what does it suggest about Texas in the novel, and how does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

The Thunderhead remarks that “acts taken in anger are intrinsically problematic, and quite often lead to destruction” (443). Does the novel as a whole confirm the remark? What in the text suggests whether it does or not? How does it do so?

(see the answer keys)

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