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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 does Soraya get in touch with the businessman to arrange meetings in the beginning of their relationship?

2. Where does Brodman take his infant grandson without telling anyone in the end of the story?

3. Whose house does the narrator stay in while attending school in the story "Switzerland"?

4. Which daughter of Brodman's has a significant life event while he is in a coma?

5. What language does Soraya speak with her own family?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the ordeal of delivering the flowers for the wedding through the wildfire seem to symbolize for Noa?

2. What does the narrator do for a living in the story "I Am Asleep but My Heart is Awake" and how does she feel about her work?

3. What is the narrator's strange dream in the beginning of the story "I Am Asleep but My Heart is Awake"?

4. Why is the narrator of "Switzerland" so transfixed by Soraya?

5. What does the narrator seem to gather about Boaz's trip that she follows him on in the story "I Am Asleep but My Heart is Awake"?

6. What task does Noa have to perform to help her parents' divorce become finalized?

7. What difference of opinion do Noa and her sister Rachel have about Leonard's and Monica's divorce?

8. As an elderly man, what is Brodman's own assessment of the job he did as a father to two daughters?

9. What is one major aspect of Leonard's and Monica's divorce that bothers Noa in the story "End Days?"

10. How does Brodman's wife Mira treat him in general?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Why do you think Krauss has chosen to leave so many of her narrators and main characters unnamed? How does this choice affect a reader's experience of the collection? Write an essay explaining your answers.

Essay Topic 2

Krauss chooses two settings repeatedly but not exclusively for the stories in this collection - Israel and New York. Write an essay exploring Krauss's descriptions and the characters' feelings towards these two places, citing specific references to the text to help support your answers.

Essay Topic 3

How would you describe the unnamed narrator's feelings about the famous landscape architect's interactions with the generals in the story "In the Garden," which result in the generals using one of the architect's gardens to bury bodies of executed prisoners in? Write an essay explaining your answers.

(see the answer keys)

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