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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 people in the anglogaggle appear to Makina?

2. What does Makina say about the food, which she knows is not true?

3. Who tells Makina to go clean up before she gives anyone the package?

4. After crossing the river, what did Makina do in the cabin while the Anglo man is waiting outside?

5. What does the narrator say it feels like like to be around Cora?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Cora send Makina to talk to the top dogs?

2. What kind of relationship does Makina have with her boyfriend?

3. What danger does Makina face in making her trip?

4. What does Makina say immigrants carried in their rucksacks?

5. What does Makina have to establish in her meetings with each of the three top dogs?

6. What makes Makina impatient to finish the errand her mother has given her?

7. How does Mr. P. help Makina in her quest?

8. What has Makina brought with her on her trip to the other side?

9. How does Makina handle the harassment she faces on the bus?

10. Who do Makina and Chucho encounter on their trip from the river in Chapter 3, and how do they escape from this person?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Evaluate Signs Preceding the End of the World as a bildungsroman, a coming-of-age narrative.

What are the challenges Makina face in rites of passage in this novel? How do they overcome these challenges, and what do they learn at each stage? Are they complete human beings at the end of the novel, or do they die too early to learn all the lessons a person would need to learn?

Essay Topic 2

What is the role of women in Signs Preceding the End of the World? How are women portrayed, and what kinds of roles are open to them? How would you evaluate Herrera’s depiction of women in this novel?

Essay Topic 3

When is Signs Preceding the End of the World most itself? What is its characteristic passage, or moment? What makes that moment or passage the most representative of the book as a whole? Are there any places where the book seems to depart from its typical self, as if to become a different book?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 855 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample