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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. Which of the four women at the gathering featured in Fresno, 2014 is French and South African?

2. The unnamed narrator's role-playing partner first takes on the role of a man in what position?

3. In what period of time was the unnamed narrator an adolescent?

4. What kind of people-mover did the unnamed narrator begin to use obsessively during her affair with a married man?

5. What type of transportation did the unnamed narrator start to obsessively use during her affair with a married professor?

Short Essay Questions

1. In what way does Popkey suggest that the reader unpack their own reactions to the life events of the woman in Santa Barbara?

2. When the identity of the father of the unnamed narrator's child is finally revealed, who is it?

3. Discuss an element of the unnamed narrator's writing voice that shares qualities with her speaking voice.

4. How did the unnamed narrator always feel about the prospect of having a baby?

5. How does the unnamed narrator answer her own question about why people confide in her?

6. Discuss at least one negative coping mechanism that the unnamed narrator uses once she has gotten sober.

7. Discuss the stream-of-consciousness style in which Topics of Conversation is written.

8. In what way does Popkey purposely mislead the reader at the start of the section called San Francisco, 2012?

9. How does the unnamed narrator describe the fertility problems she and John experienced during their marriage?

10. What worldview did Fran express during her tirade depicted in Fresno, 2014 and how does the narrator now view Fran's comments?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Choose an object from Topics of Conversation, such as the hedge maze, alcoholic drinks, or some other symbolic object and discuss its overall meaning and its connection to themes within the text.

Essay Topic 2

Discuss Popkey’s use of metaphor, simile, imagery, and other literary devices as a means to send particular thematic messages within the narrative of Topics of Conversation.

Essay Topic 3

Sensory details are used frequently by Popkey in order to create vivid pictures of each character's progression through the narrative of Topics of Conversation. Choose three scenes in which sensory details are heavily used and discuss how the sensory details used serve Popkey’s creation of vivid characters to populate the narrative.

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