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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 Asian food does Bee offer to prepare?

2. In the car, Heinrich offers five dollars to anyone who can name the population of which country?

3. Where does the German teacher live?

4. What happened while Jack is waiting at the airport with Tweedy ?

5. When the family sees this person on TV, they are surprised and scared.

Short Essay Questions

1. Why is Bob Pardee passing through town?

2. Describe the family lunch the Gladneys eat, in terms of who attended, what they ate and what the mood was.

3. Who makes up the group of teachers in the pop culture department?

4. Babette's class at the Church is made of what kind of people learning what activities?

5. Describe the student body of the College-on-the-Hill.

6. What is so shocking about Jack's trouble with German?

7. Describe how Murray interacts with Jack and Babette at the supermarket.

8. Why do they bring Wilder to the doctor in Chapter 16?

9. Why did Babette want to see "station-wagon" day?

10. Why did Jack name Heinrich Heinrich?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The supermarket is an important locale in this novel. Describe what the supermarket means thematically in this novel, remembering to include what happens there through the novel and what role it plays both in the lives of the characters and in terms of advancing the plot.

Essay Topic 2

Write an analytical essay that explains and contextualizes the ways this family communicates with each other. Do they all communicate in the same way? Does anyone in the family communicate differently? Be sure to include specific exploration of DeLillo's dialogue as a fictional technique that demonstrate what these various communications styles mean thematically.

Essay Topic 3

Describe the role that television plays in the life of the Gladney family. What is DeLillo trying to communicate about the way Americans watch television, or about what is produced and broadcast? Is this novel a critique of a "media generation"? Has television changed substantially since 1985? Would a new version of this novel include the internet in similar ways? Why or why not?

(see the answer keys)

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