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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. In Chapter 3, what type of car does Khanh drive?

2. In Chapter 3, where does Khanh plan to open another laundry?

3. In Chapter 2, what does Grandfather buy by the dozen at Ham Nghi?

4. When did Miss Noi come to America?

5. In Chapter 2, how old was the narrator when her grandfather died?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the Vietnamese custom about sharing bad news?

2. What is so special about apples for Miss Noi?

3. How did Miss Noi get to America?

4. How did the Chapter 1 narrator lose his wife?

5. When and how did Khanh’s wife’s father die?

6. What does the narrator in Chapter 1 do during the war?

7. What happens to the narrator in Chapter 7 when he tries to throw a hog’s bladder over his rival’s house?

8. What does Thieu try to interest in son in doing when Bill is bored?

9. Why did it take so long to get Francine and her mother out of Vietnam?

10. What was at the Ham Nghi market in Chapter 2?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In Chapter 4, Miss Noi shares her love for fairy tales. Why does Miss Noi like fairy tales? Why does she especially like the word “upon” that begins most fairy tales? Is her story told like a fairy tale? Does she believe that her life has been a fairy tale?

Essay Topic 2

The stories in Chapters 8 and 9 are similar. To whom are the narrators speaking? What myths and stories do the narrators share? How do these myths and stories shape the way that the narrators view life? What have the narrators lost? Do both narrators find something to replace what they lost?

Essay Topic 3

In Chapter 5, Thieu’s son is growing up American. What is his son’s name? How does Bill dress? What are Bill’s interests? How does Bill respond when his father speaks Vietnamese? How does Thieu’s attempt to interest Bill in a Vietnamese boyhood tradition succeed? Is Bill more Vietnamese or more American?

(see the answer keys)

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