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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. Thi compares her excitement upon arriving in what city for the first time to Bo's excitement when he first arrived in Saigon?

2. The destruction of whose only assets led to their return to a situation of domestic violence?

3. Bo tells Thi that when he was what age, his grandfather had enrolled Bo in a French school?

4. Chapter 5, entitled "Either, Or," revolves around which person?

5. How many months' pregnant was Ma when she and Bo planned their escape?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the origins of Bui's memoir The Best We Could Do.

2. How does Bui elicit pathos within Chapter 7, entitled "Heroes and Losers"?

3. What extreme action do Bo and Hai take in order to keep Hai's children quiet during the escape?

4. In what way did the Communist party leaders use language to mask their true actions?

5. What objects do the Communists consider to be "capitalist filth" (220)?

6. What occurs on April 30, 1975?

7. How does Bui visually depict the many different perspectives about April 30, 1975?

8. Whom does Thi name as being a difficult person for her to write about?

9. What is ironic about Ma's openness with Travis, as depicted within the setting of the car?

10. One day a box arrives at the Bui home and it is from Vietnam. What is contained inside?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How is the topic of The Other treated within the memoir and what is Bui's purpose for portraying Otherness in this way?

Essay Topic 2

Determine Bui’s message within the memoir The Best We Could Do regarding the idea that some chasms that exist between family members will never be wholly filled.

Essay Topic 3

Sensory details are used frequently by Bui in order to create vivid pictures of each character's progression through the narrative of The Best We Could Do. Choose three scenes in which sensory details are heavily used and discuss how the sensory details used serve Bui’s creation of vivid characters to populate the narrative.

(see the answer keys)

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