An Outpost Of Progress

Multiple Choice and Long Answer questions create ideal opportunities for whole-book review, unit exam, or summative assessments.

Multiple Choice

1. Why does Kayerts take the post at the outpost?

A) To earn a dowry for his daughter

B) To build his reputation

C) To save enough to retire

D) To run away from the law

2. What do the physical changes in Kayerts and Carlier reflect?

A) Their adjustment to the Congo

B) Their devolution away from being civilized, educated people

C) Their hypocrisy

D) Their understanding of the jungle

3. “Progress was calling to Kayerts from the river” is an example of which kind of figurative language?

A) Imagery

B) Metaphor

C) Personification

D) Simile

4. Which plot scenario best represents Makola’s complex existence in a Belgian outpost located in the Congo?

A) Makola understands the antiquated bookkeeping system.

B) Makola coolly negotiates to trade humans for ivory.

C) Makola speaks multiple languages.

D) Makola covers up Carlier’s murder.

5. What do the fog and the jungle symbolize?

A) A world of paradox and moral relativism

B) A world of confusion and uncertainty

C) A world of danger and threats

D) A world of opportunity and progress

6. What is the name “Great Civilizing Company,” in contrast to the company’s work, an example of?

A) Symbolism

B) Irony

C) Ambiguity

D) Evil

7. Kayerts killing Carlier over sugar best illustrates which philosophical theory?

A) Determinism (the philosophical theory that external forces control human fates)

B) Existentialism (the philosophical theory that individuals are responsible for creating their own meaning)

C) Idealism (the philosophical theory that notions of the ideal or the spiritual are central to human experience)

D) Absurdism (the philosophical theory that the universe is random and chaotic)

8. After his death on the Cross, what does Kayerts’s blackened, swollen, lolling tongue seem to mock?

A) Makola and Carlier

B) His own sense of morality

C) The “moral superiority” of European colonizers

D)  The density of the jungle

Long Answer

Compose a response of 2-3 sentences, incorporating text details to support your response.

1. In what ways does society, and then the absence of society in the Congo, affect Kayerts and Carlier?

2. How do Gobila and Makola differ, especially with regard to interaction with or influence by the Europeans?