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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. What grade does Mother teach?

2. What birds does the narrator hear in "Urania: Astronomy"?

3. What calendar dates the birth of Yu Guan Soon?

4. In the translation exercises in the Opening, which city does the traveler leave?

5. What year does Mother graduate from college?

Short Essay Questions

1. Explain the letter to Mother in "Melpomene: Tragedy."

2. What is the significance of the italicized passages in the "Opening"?

3. Where does Mother teach?

4. Describe Mother's ideas about what people do just before death.

5. Describe the process Mother undergoes to become an American citizen.

6. What is happening in the opening passage of "Melpomene: Tragedy"?

7. Discuss the significance of the title which first appears in the "Opening." What does "dictee" mean? How does it fit the work?

8. According to the narrator of "Clio: History," why has everything been lost to the Japanese?

9. Discuss the break down in the translation exercise in the opening, particularly beginning with exercise number 5 in the second set of translations. Why does the grammar, tone, and voice shift?

10. What is Mother's MAH-UHM? Where is it trapped?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Language and the power of speech recur as central needs throughout the work. Often the act of speech or the need to communicate becomes the central focus of particular passages or entire sections. Analyze Cha's treatment of speech and language in the work. Is the power of speech celebrated? Is silence championed? How do the pressures of language acquisition factor into her commentary on language and communication? How do the pressures of immigrant or exile identity affect speech and language?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the author's play with genre in the novel. How does Cha manipulate various genres and forms in her work? Does Cha break genre conventions in a way that expands our notions of what a book can do? Or does she simply overstep the bounds of what a book should do? Provide evidence and support for your analysis.

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the significance of the work's nine-part structure. How does Cha's invocation of a Muse in each chapter structure and order the work? What new layer of meaning does it lend the text? Is this choice effective in adding to the overall message of the work? Why or why not?

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