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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. Which family member is the first to know about the spill?

2. Who is teaching a seminar about car crashes?

3. What is Orest's last name?

4. Dana Breedlove and Jack were married how many times?

5. What does Jack discover hidden in the bathroom?

Short Essay Questions

1. Where does Jack drive Willie Mink and why?

2. What is the (potentially wrong) answer Denise gives Babette when Babette wonders why UFOs always come from upstate?

3. When Jack asks Babette for Mr. Gray's real name, why does she refuse to tell him?

4. According to Heinrich, toxic spills are not "the real issue." What does he tell his sisters and parents they should be worried of?

5. Who is Willie Mink?

6. What is the condition Babette has, for which she is taking Dylar.

7. How did the mock evacuation in Chapter 28 turn out?

8. How did Jack act during his appointment with Dr. Chakravarty?

9. What is the Law of Ruins Jack describes?

10. How did Babette convince Mr. Gray to let her try the Dylar?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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?

Essay Topic 2

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 3

These characters are preoccupied, and maybe even obsessed, with their own deaths. Compare and contrast Jack's obsession with his mortality and Babette's obsession with hers. Write an essay that details the ways their fear of death are similar and how they are different. Be sure to describe specific instances in the novel and how the reader comes to understand each.

(see the answer keys)

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