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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. How do the girl's parents react when they hear about the boy?

2. Why is Julia Jaramond looking forward to taking over Mame Tézac's apartment?

3. Who is at the door when there is a knock?

4. What does the girl do to take care of the other children?

5. Where does the girl's father spend time when he is not working?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the larger context for the story, and how does the story clue us in to that larger context?

2. What do the girl and her mother take with them when they leave their home?

3. How does it happen that two members of the family do not go with the police?

4. What does pregnancy mean for Julia?

5. When and where does "Sarah's Key" take place?

6. How does the narrator characterize Julia and Zoe?

7. Where do the girl and Rachel go after Beaune-la-Rolande?

8. What do the yellow stars signify?

9. What restrictions have the Jews had to obey under the Vichy government?

10. How are the girl and her mother treated as they leave the apartment building?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the significance of Bertrand's mid-life crisis? Is it a convenient mechanism for removing him from Julia's live, to make room for William Rainsferd, or is it a metaphor for the inability to arrive at a mature acceptance of life's painful complexities?

Essay Topic 2

In what way is "Sarah's Key" an allegorical novel? What does Julia's baby symbolize? What other symbols give "Sarah's Key" a deeper meaning than the literal? How does the novel teach a moral, or resolve a symbolic problem?

Essay Topic 3

Map out the two stories developed in "Sarah's Key", the Sarah story and the Julia story. Where do they depart, where do they overlap, where do they separate? Describe the problems and challenges associated with choosing a visual form for describing the novel.

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