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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. Who sports orange hair and smudged black eyes and wears an oversized dress?

2. What does Cy decide he needs while looking at the design on paper that Grace hands him?

3. What can cost two-thirds of one's tattoo business?

4. What does Cy offer Nina?

5. Where is Cy when "Babylon in Brooklyn" opens?

Short Essay Questions

1. How had Grace come to be known by some many so that perhaps Sedak knows of her and judges her?

2. Describe the first few days that Cy spends at the hospital.

3. Why does tattooing survive change?

4. Why does Cy not knock on apartment number 104, though it draws him?

5. Describe the first meeting between Arturas and Claudia Overas and Cy.

6. What does Cy think he sees in a neighboring apartment that makes him question his sanity?

7. When Cy is somewhat inebriated in Vargas, he makes what connection between Grace and his mother and how does he react to that connection?

8. Why does Cy stay open on rainy days and describe one such day.

9. When Grace is out of the hospital and visits Cy, how is her body described and how does Cy respond?

10. How does Cy first meet Grace?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

There are several metaphors throughout the book, Electric Michelangelo, perhaps one of the most striking is that of Grace and her tattoos. Choose one of the following and write a well-developed, cohesive essay using examples from the text and your research or personal experience:

1. Define metaphor and symbolism and compare the two using specific examples both from the book and other sources. Which do you feel is more effective? Which seems better at expressing the idea of an abstract concept? Why would you use one over the other--give specific examples.

2. For what do you think Grace's body is a metaphor? Explain using specific examples. Does the metaphor work for you?

3. Write a real or hypothetical situation in your personal experience that includes one or more abstract concepts and then create a metaphor to express that experience. Next, choose a way to use symbolism in the telling of the experience. Which way seems more effective at portraying the experience?

Essay Topic 2

As Cy is working for Riley after his mother has died, Cy continues to judge life by Reeda's standards for many years after she dies. Eventually, he begins to judge life by Riley's standards. After he has moved to Brooklyn and lives in a world of which Riley nor Reeda know anything, their ideas still greatly influence his interpretations of the life around him. Answer the following questions and write a well-developed, cohesive essay using examples from the text and your research or personal experience:

1. Discuss how Riley's influence is still a large part of Cy's life in America.

2. Discuss how his mother's ideas inform Cy's adult life--be sure to include specific examples.

3. At what point in Cy's life does Cy begin formulating his own ideas about life? Give examples. Do Reeda's and Riley's influence ever completely fade out of Cy's mind?

Essay Topic 3

As the novel opens and then moves along to its conclusion, some characters seem to change more and some seem to stay the same. Choose one of the following and write a well-developed, cohesive essay using examples from the text and your research or personal experience:

1. Compare the character of Cy from who he seems to be during the first half of the book to the person he seems to be in the latter half. How is he alike? How different? Which "person" do you like the best? Why? How is Cy more alike and more different from Riley at the end then at the beginning?

2. Compare the character of Grace from who she seems when she is first introduced to how she seems after her hospital stay. How is she the same? How different? Which "person" do you like the best? Why? Has she changed more or less than Cy in the course of the novel?

3. Compare and contrast Riley, Claudia, and Reeda from who they seem to be when they are first introduced to who they are revealed to be by the end of the story. How much do they change or become who they really are? Or do they change? Who did you like at first and then dislike by the end of the story--and vice versa?

(see the answer keys)

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