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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 is the one topic in Tomas's and Claire's relationship in which he resists?

2. What does Isabel show Tomas in the shed of her house?

3. Who does Tomas tell the Priest taught him how to clean?

4. When does Tomas's mother insist on visiting in Chapter Eleven?

5. Where does Tomas travel to in Chapter Nineteen?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the Colonel tell Tomas about some of the most terrible torturers at Automotores?

2. What is one major problem Tomas's wife Claire has confronted him about, which he recalls in Chapter 10?

3. What does Tomas do in Chapter Seventeen that is a great risk to himself?

4. What happens when Tomas's mother visits in Chapter 11?

5. In Chapter 11, what does Tomas tell Isabel about his first few weeks at Automotores?

6. Why is Tomas's mother getting increasingly worried about him in Buenos Aires in Chapter Ten?

7. What job does the Colonel end up arranging for Tomas?

8. What does Tomas recall about his mother's death?

9. Why does Tomas feel especially sorry for Elizabeth?

10. Where does Isabel ask Tomas to try to get a job in Chapter Ten?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How does Tomas end up feeling about his own survival and the fact of his complicity in the government's/junta's torture regime? Write an essay explaining your answers, citing specific references to the text to help support your conclusions.

Essay Topic 2

How does Tomas describe the actions and attitudes of everyday Argentinians who witness the brutality of the juntas? Write an essay explaining your answers, citing specific references to the text to help support your conclusions.

Essay Topic 3

How does Loedel's own family history, as he describes it in the afterword, inform his writing of this novel? Write an essay explaining your answers.

(see the answer keys)

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