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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What side of Siula Grande do Joe and Simon have the ambition to conquer?
(a) The South Face.
(b) The North Face.
(c) The East Face.
(d) The West Face.

2. How do Peruvian flutings contrast to European flutings?
(a) They are made of snow.
(b) They are made of yellow rock.
(c) They appear to defy gravity.
(d) They are difficult to see.

3. Where does Richard sleep on the way up to base camp?
(a) In a snow cave.
(b) In a pigsty.
(c) In a hammock.
(d) In his tent.

4. What is verglas?
(a) A type of eye lens used to help climbers with vertigo.
(b) A thin glaze of glass-like ice covering the rock.
(c) Vertical ice.
(d) Vertical scree.

5. When Joe says to Simon, 'We should top out today' (p41), what does he mean?
(a) We should reach the summit.
(b) We should drink the maximum amount of fluids.
(c) We should beat our altitude record.
(d) We should consume the maximum amount of calories.

Short Answer Questions

1. At the end of the chapter "On the Edge", Joe notes what about the day?

2. What is a Karrimat?

3. How does Joe describe the look in Simon's eyes when he tells Simon that he has broken his leg?

4. After his accident with Ian, Joe regains his desire to climb, except for the dread of what?

5. When Joe follows Simon, he is careful to do what?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the first bivouac site on Siula Grande.

2. What occurs to Joe at the beginning of "On the Edge"?

3. On the eve of the summit conquest, what does Simon do that leaves Joe in disbelief?

4. What observation does Joe make about tents in the opening scene of the book?

5. Joe says that a 'warm feeling' stays with him while Simon lowers him. What 'warm feeling' is he referring to?

6. After Joe tells Simon that he has broken his leg, he describes the pitiful look that Simon gives him as, 'a distance given to a wounded animal which could not be helped' (p74). From Simon's point of view, why does he give him this look?

7. While trying to find the North Ridge again after leaving the summit, what happens to Simon?

8. What worries Joe and Simon the most about the final part of the route to the summit?

9. Compare or contrast the influence of the incident on The Bonatti Pillar on the climbing careers of Joe Simpson and Ian Whittaker.

10. In "Disaster", Joe says, 'In an instant an uncrossable gap had come between us and we were no longer a team working together.' In "The Final Choice", how has Joe's view changed?

(see the answer keys)

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