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. Heinrich interrupts Jack and his sisters as they look through what book?

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

3. Where did the psychic live?

4. What Asian food does Bee offer to prepare?

5. According to Heinrich, what is the result when plastic furniture burns?

Short Essay Questions

1. Heinrich is playing chess with someone through letters. Describe his opponent.

2. What kind of exercise does Babette do? Does Jack join in?

3. Why is the chair of the department of American environments (the pop-culture department) opposed to Murray's establishment of Elvis studies?

4. What is Jack's position at the college?

5. Why did they evacuate the grade school in Chapter 9?

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

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

8. Why does Bee say that the people who crash landed went through a bad experience for nothing?

9. Describe the scene that opens the novel, in terms of setting, action and narration.

10. Why is Bob Pardee passing through town?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

While Jack is obsessed with a mass-murderer, he is afraid of his own death. Babette seems to think that Jack's biology and jealousy make him predestined to be homicidal. Interrogate her claims, based on evidence from the text. Why does Jack resort to violence? What does it have to do with his academic obsession with Hitler and maybe even his J.A.K. persona? How does DeLillo use German and associations with Germany to explore Jack's fear?

Essay Topic 2

Babette teaches frivolous and ridiculous classes; Jack teaches Hitler studies rather than German History or Politics, and his colleague Murray wants to create an Elvis studies department. Write an analytical essay in which you explore and discuss what you think DeLillo is communicating about education, teaching, higher education, or learning. Be sure to consider Jack's attempts at irony.

Essay Topic 3

Compare and contrast Winnie Richard's attitudes about death, mortality and dying with those of Orest Mercator. How are these two alike, and how are they different? What does Jack learn from each of them?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 759 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample