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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. Why do Mexicans tell lies (Chapter Two)?
(a) To create confusion.
(b) Merely for the enjoyment of it.
(c) To hide themselves.
(d) To protect the other person.

2. What do a pachuco's actions and lifestyle demonstrate?
(a) His anger at a culture that will not assimilate him.
(b) His will to remain different.
(c) His desire to return to Mexico.
(d) His dissatisfaction with North American culture.

3. According to Paz, how does death end when a civilization denies it?
(a) By evading death.
(b) By living fully.
(c) It does not end.
(d) Through the denial of life.

4. What is Paz's opinion about Western respect for life?
(a) It illustrates man's limitations.
(b) It is not convincing.
(c) It is truthful and realistic.
(d) It is either hypocritical or incomplete.

5. In Paz's estimation, what vital word has the Mexican forgotten?
(a) The word that allows him to reach out to others.
(b) The word tying him to life forces of creativity and destruction.
(c) The word of love given to him by his mother.
(d) The word that gives him peace with all others.

Short Answer Questions

1. As Paz begins Chapter Two, he says that the Mexican is always afraid to glance at his neighbor. What reason does he give for that?

2. What is the most valued trait in both the military and political realms?

3. Why does the worker lack mystery?

4. What makes the foreigner skeptical about Mexicans (Chapter Four)?

5. How are the worlds of terrorism and mass production similar to each other? (Chapter Four).

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Paz's understanding of woman? How does it fit the Mexican mindset?

2. How does North American culture view the pachuco? Does the pachuco accept or reject that culture's perception of him?

3. Who represents the conflict that Mexicans have not been able to solve? What effect does that conflict have on their culture?

4. In Chapter Three, the following idea is presented: "There is nothing so joyous as a Mexican fiesta, but there is also nothing so sorrowful. Fiesta night is also a night of mourning" (Chapter 3, page 53). What does that mean?

5. What is the modern view of death? How is it dramatically different from the Aztec view?

6. According to Alarcon, why does the liar lie to himself? Given what you know of the Mexican mindset, does that make sense?

7. What group of people did the author have in mind as he wrote the book? How and why did those people become important to him?

8. What were Paz's impressions of the United States? How does that contrast with the literature being written? In your mind, what accounts for the discrepancy?

9. What is the greatest horror that a worker suffers? Do you think that is true?

10. How did the Aztecs view sin? How does that idea explain the Conquest? What enormous change did Catholicism introduce?

(see the answer keys)

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