View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. For what channel does Martinez work?

2. How do Patience and Natalie address the passed storm?

3. Which of the following do Owen and George find inside Jimmy’s Place?

4. In what grade was Owen when Churchill suffered a food shortage?

5. In which of the following does Gratz live?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Patience put Natalie to work taking people’s information?

2. Why does Lars assert his house is safe from fire?

3. What leads Owen to consider the ruination of Churchill?

4. How does the novel define a firebreak?

5. Why does the area in which Patience lives rise above the storm water early on?

6. How does the novel describe horses’ vision?

7. Why does the restauranteur Natalie encounters hesitate to open her freezer?

8. Why does Akira initially wonder if the plane she sees overhead is lost?

9. How does the novel describe Akira’s second-degree burn (2248)?

10. What urges Natalie to seek shelter with Patience?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Section divisions, their titles, and chapter numbering / division schema are all components of paratext. That is, they are not part of the text but are associated with it closely and affect its meaning. What significance, if any, accrues to the chapter-numbering scheme at work in Two Degrees? If there is significance, how does that significance manifest? If there is not, what in the novel supports the paratextual divisions that are in place?

Essay Topic 2

Readerly attention focuses on the following passage: “‘Some people are always going to take without giving,’ [Patience] said. ‘I’m always going to give without taking’” (3504). Considering your own reading of the novel, what accounts for the attention paid to the passage? Why might it attract attention?

Essay Topic 3

Similarly, the lengths of chapters influence reading. What pattern of chapter-length is present in the novel, if any? What effect does the length of chapters have on the reading? How is the effect achieved?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 557 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample