End of Chapter Questions for an Imaginary Textbook

Review

1. Describe how like or unlike a vagina a peach pit is, using no anatomical words.

2. How did Tito cook couscous without any water, and in fact, no couscous. (Extra credit: Did it taste any good?)

3. How prosperous is your father, monetarily? Please provide an exact figure so we know to either laugh or to ask to borrow "sum."

4. If, in a saloon, the door a cowboy enters through swings both way, can we assume that the door is mostly homosexual?

5. True or false: 4 out of 5 of Yugoslavia's most prosperous farmers are unaware that Yugoslavia is no longer a country.

Discussion

1. As Dimitrije's father says, "Life is as much possibility as it is impossibility as it is missed possibility." What can we possibly assume the father is referring to? How long had he been in prison at the point when he had said this? How did the pencil thin mustache he'd grown at the point of saying it fit into his overall existential mood? Give reasons for your answers.

2. Will South Dakota ever cede from the union? When will this happen? Will anyone notice? Why, or why not?

3. What effect, if any, might the large tourism industry in our country have on my home life? Why is there such an influx of Macedonians in my rumpus room and how will their visit effect their worldview when they return home? Will they lug my bed bugs back in their hair and decimate their own Macedonian furniture? True or False: Macedonian Furniture sounds like a good band name.

Activities

1. A committee of housewives may get together to protest the existence of the the word "housewives." That these women are both homeless and unmarried is an unessential fact. They should prepare oral reports, computer rendered presentations, and sculpture (singular) to explain their message. Extra credit will be given for each neologism used (ex: jam tomorrow, seeing the elephant).

2. Some pairs of students in the class may get more involved with each other than with their studies. Admit it - it happens.

3. Write about writing your final diary entry. Specifically, speculate in words about what you think will happen to your diary when you die. Will you feel ashamed for your mother to read through it? Your father? The editor of Details magazine? The FBI? What if this written speculation is, in fact, your last diary entry? Woah.

Skills

Use the answers provided above and information in Chapter 11 of your text to answer the following questions.

1. What percentage of teachers are women?

2. What percentage of women are teachers?

3. Does the percentage of teachers who are female increase or decrease depending on subject matter? Objectively, does leading a "girly" subject like Cryptography: Math and Codes make a female teacher more womanly than a markedly "macho" subject, such as Chinese Character Writing?

4. Who has been asking these questions?
a) a child in Peacock Country, dressed in finery, squinting into a fire pit  b) a man in a tank c) Bread is Expensive (née, Richard Caspian) d) all the above f) all the above with the exception of d)

5. For what year is this information accurate?