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. From where did Mr. Gray operate his "business"?

2. Which family in the neighborhood has a new dog?

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

4. What headline does Willie Mink use to advertise Dylar and attract experimental volunteers?

5. What is Jack's doctor's name?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Why does Jack follow Winnie Richards in Chapter 25? Are his reasons valid?

3. Where does Jack discover Babette's Dylar?

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

5. What happened to Orest's quest to break the world record? What happens when he tries to do it?

6. What is the Law of Ruins Jack describes?

7. What is Orest Mercator trying to do?

8. According to Heinrich, what are the effects of Nyodene Derivative?

9. Why is Heinrich crouched outside on the roof at the beginning of Book 2?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

Compare and contrast the Airborne Toxic Event with a real crisis--Wilder's tricycle trip through traffic at the end of the book. How does DeLillo present each story event and characterize the family's reaction? What are the structural differences (as in, when each event happens in the chronology of the novel) and what do you think DeLillo wants the reader to think at these two times? What are the effects of these two crisis situations on the family members and what do they reveal about who these people are? What is DeLillo's larger point in contrasting such a small, personalized event with one that involved the whole town?

Essay Topic 3

Image is important on television, as well as in this novel. Describe how these characters create and project persona and identities that may not be entirely their own. Students should write an analysis of the issue of image and manufactured image in terms of at least one major character (such as Jack, Babette or Murray) and at least one minor character (Howard Waldrop, Winnie Richards, Willie Minks, etc.).

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 832 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample