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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 can survive the heat ray?

2. Who does the narrator say he finds reassuring the morning before he is forced to flee?

3. What is a curate?

4. What is the curate doing when the narrator first meets him?

5. What does the narrator drink when he gets back to his house for the first time?

Short Essay Questions

1. What happens in the ruined house that makes the narrator hide in the basement?

2. Why does the author take his wife to his cousin's house? What is the state of the town at that point?

3. How far does news of the heat-ray spread after the first attack? What does this indicate?

4. As the curate and narrator fight for position at the opening in the ruined house, what do they see, and how does the narrator react?

5. How does the Martian invasion begin and how do people generally react?

6. What happens to one of the Martian tripods at the Thames River? What is the significance of this event?

7. Right after the Martians first use the heat-ray, what do people know about how the weapon works?

8. What does Ogilvy observe about the object when he first sees it?

9. How do people react when Ogilvy runs to the village for help, and why?

10. After the narrator walks toward the dead Martian, what does he see, and why is this important?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How and why do people use a crisis for personal gain in War of the Worlds?

Essay Topic 2

Analyze how the author discusses discrimination in War of the Worlds.

Essay Topic 3

Examine the author's use of mythological and Biblical allusions in this novel, and explain what purpose they serve.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 740 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample