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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. What is the name of Cotter's father?

2. Why can Sister Alma Edgar no longer teach?

3. What kind of car is the man driving across the desert?

4. What is the name of Richard's friend?

5. What does Marvin tell Brian he has searched for from the Dodger Giants game?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did Nick's son change after the LA riots?

2. What does Nick think about meeting Klara after all these years?

3. How does Jackie Gleason entertain members of the crowd?

4. Why does Nick have his mother's surname instead of his father's?

5. What do we find out about Nick's past in this section?

6. Who was Albert Bronzini?

7. What do people in Phoenix think about Nick's roots?

8. Why does Hoover appreciate Truman's timing in the announcement of the Soviet bomb?

9. Why did sister Edgar stop hitting kids?

10. How did Bobby Thompson's home run affect people?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Why has the author chosen Nick and Klara's affair as the central part of his story? Choose two other characters that the author could ahve chosen as the central part of his story. How would the novel change?

Essay Topic 2

What significance do the following events have on the story and the lives of the characters?

1. The 1951 bomb testing.

2. The 1951 world series game.

Essay Topic 3

What is Manx's role in the novel? What meaning does his character give the novel? How would the novel change if Manx was not a character in the novel?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 784 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample