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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. When the high-ranking soldiers for whom the band played has taken their leave, what is NOT a rule put in place by the remaining Khmer Rouge soldiers?
(a) Now no one can hunt for their own food.
(b) Now no one is allowed to fall in love.
(c) Now the band has to play at nighttime meetings so that all of the kids can learn the words to the songs.
(d) Now no one is allowed to speak to the soldiers for any reason.

2. When the Khmer Rouge evacuate all of the cities in order to force everyone into agricultural work, how many days do they tell the villagers they will be gone?
(a) 5 days.
(b) 14 days.
(c) 3 days.
(d) 10 days.

3. What method does Mek, the new music teacher, tell Arn that he uses to survive?
(a) He dreams.
(b) He thinks about one hour at a time.
(c) He composes music.
(d) He watches the birds fly.

4. Where do Arn and Munny hide when they hear the sounds of a nearby battle during their make-believe game of war?
(a) In the theater where they had seen the movie earlier that night.
(b) In the branches of a nearby Banyan tree.
(c) In a pond near their house.
(d) In their rich next-door-neighbor's Mercedes.

5. Where do Arn and Munny go after the American movie to play a pretend game of war?
(a) The park.
(b) The town square.
(c) The soccer field.
(d) The mango grove.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why does Arn at first hesitate to volunteer when a high-ranking Khmer Rouge soldier asks who wants to play music in a band within the camp?

2. What event causes Arn to wonder if he has become a monster just like the Khmer Rouge soldiers?

3. When Chantou gets mad that Arn is working as a vendor, what is NOT something she says he should be doing instead?

4. When the five-year-old boy that reminds Arn of his little brother sneaks out night after night, returning only in the morning, what does Arn eventually find out he is doing?

5. How does Arn find out unequivocally that the government soldiers who answered the Khmer Rouge's call to go to the airport were subsequently murdered?

Short Essay Questions

1. When a soldier from Arn's home village comes to camp, what does he offer Arn in exchange for some rice and what does Arn learn as a result of accepting his offered deal?

2. What is the significance of the escape from camp by the boy from Arn's village?

3. How does Arn fix the problem of the new music teacher's apathy and what effect does this solution have on the band's members?

4. When the current leader of the camp tells Mek that he and band will soon be going somewhere new, they are all terrified that they will be killed instead and that this is just another instance of the Khmer Rouge's euphemisms. However, they are not killed and what happens instead introduces the theme of fame into the novel. What happens in lieu of their deaths?

5. When Arn's curiosity gets the better of him and he finally asks Sombo the reason for his permissiveness concerning Arn's behavior, what reasoning does Sombo provide and what is the author's purpose in portraying Sombo's character in this particular way?

6. When the evacuees are finally allowed to stop to set up camp in groups of around a thousand people each, what do Arn and his little sister Sophea discover about the Khmer Rouge's philosophies when they sneak around listening to the soldiers' conversations?

7. What ploy do the Khmer Rouge use to get the government soldiers to come to the airport and what happens once they arrive?

8. After Arn is chosen by Khmer Rouge leaders to play music in their band, Arn sees there are positive results and negative results of his being chosen. What are they and what does this show about one's fate under the rule of the Khmer Rouge?

9. When Arn sneaks out to tell Mek about the soldier who forced him to cook the liver of a murdered captive, he is caught by a soldier but does not suffer the dire consequences he is expecting. What happens instead and what significance does it hold for Arn?

10. What is ironic about the fact that the rice crop falls significantly short of the Khmer Rouge's expectations and they then reduce everyone's food allotment even further than before?

(see the answer keys)

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