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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. Whom did Mrs. Zajac ask to clean out Clarence's desk?

2. What was the name of the newspaper Felipe bought and brought home to his father and a resident of his building?

3. What statistic applied to Holyoke School about their standardized test scores?

4. How did Father Joyce define a "cultural Catholic?"

5. How did Kelly School children score on the standardized tests whose results arrived that year?

Short Essay Questions

1. What was the Alpha class? Who decided whether a child was appropriate for the Alpha class?

2. What did Mrs. Zajac begin to realize about continuing to keep Clarence in her class? What were her options?

3. What kinds of behavior did Robert exhibit that concerned Mrs. Zajac? What did she want Robert's mother to do? Did Robert's mother follow through with this suggestion?

4. What is the history of Puerto Ricans in the town of Holyoke? How were they treated in the second half of the twentieth century?

5. Where did Mrs. Zajac take her class on a field trip? Why did she choose this place for the children to see? Why was this trip especially important to Judith and Arabella?

6. What were some of the differences Mrs. Zajac noticed between the English Mass and the Spanish mass? What did she learn about the Puerto Rican culture by attending the bilingual mass Father Joyce offered?

7. What did Mrs. Zajac dream about the night before her first day in class without Clarence? How does she feel as the week begins and Clarence is not there?

8. How did Mrs. Zajac think the students in her class would react to Clarence's departure from their class? How did they actually respond to Clarence not being in the classroom?

9. What student left Mrs. Zajac's class? Why did the student leave?

10. Where was Robert during the Science Fair? What did Mrs. Zajac learn about Robert and his efforts to participate in the Science Fair?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Mrs. Zajac took her fifth grade class on a field trip to Old Sturbridge Village and had two different agendas for the field trip. What were those two agendas, and how did she work to accomplish both? Why was this trip important to Mrs. Zajac?

Essay Topic 2

What specific challenges did teaching math in her classroom present to Mrs. Zajac? What teaching skills did she employ in order to meet the challenge?

Essay Topic 3

Compare and contrast the Puerto Rican and white cultures as evidenced in church, in school, and in the city of Holyoke.

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