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. What does Ray Johnson do for Pedro Gutierrez?

2. What is Zofia's family's relationship with the Nazis?

3. What does Ray Johnson learn about Pedro Gutierrez?

4. After the war, where does Walter Bowman take what he made?

5. Whom does Henry Bowman NOT start writing to?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who is Walter Bowman?

2. Who is the Gutierrez family?

3. What is Henry Bowman's goal in life as a young person?

4. What happens to Zofia in the first chapter "Seeds"?

5. Describe Henry Bowman's childhood.

6. Who are Henry Bowman's friends as a teenager?

7. What had Ray Johnson just finished when we see him in 1959?

8. What happens to Zofia's family?

9. How does John Ross turn our focus to guns in World War II?

10. Who is Ray Johnson?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How realistic is this book? What parts are not believable? What leaps of faith does the author require of the reader? Are these leaps painful to make? What do these leaps allow the author to do?

Essay Topic 2

Compare and contrast the characterization of Henry Bowman and one of the minor characters. How are they similar? How are they different? How are the characters drawn differently? What kind of detail does Henry Bowman get? How detailed is his characterization?

Essay Topic 3

Evaluate the proposition that as societies grow more complex, their members have to make more and more sacrifices of personal liberty for the sake of social peace.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 522 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample