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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. What rite of passage did Mademba and Alfa share on the same day in their youth?
(a) Circumcision.
(b) Wedding vows.
(c) Confirmation.
(d) Communion.

2. What entreaty to Mademba does Alfa finish Chapter I with?
(a) He asks Mademba to pray for him.
(b) He asks Mademba to avenge him.
(c) He asks Mademba to forgive him.
(d) He asks Mademba to tell his mother he loves her if he sees her in heaven.

3. Who translates the words of Captain Armand for Alfa?
(a) Ibrahima Seck.
(b) Horatio.
(c) Jean-Baptiste.
(d) Mademba.

4. What words do Alfa's translator in Part II say over and over?
(a) These are not my words.
(b) These are his words.
(c) Please sir, do not hurt us.
(d) The Captain says.

5. What does Alfa imagine the Germans did for the person who killed Jean-Baptiste?
(a) Offer him tobacco and maybe even write a song for him.
(b) Give him chocolate.
(c) Give him a parade.
(d) Punish him.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which of the following phrases about God does Alfa repeat throughout Part I?

2. Where do the soldiers Alfa kills in the night always come out of?

3. Why are the fires the men make in the trenches so small?

4. What work of Pascal Quignard's does Diop reference in the beginning of Part I?

5. How do the other soldiers react to Alfa when he comes back to the trench in Chapter II?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Alfa think about his fellow soldiers and his perceptions of who is really is in Part I?

2. How does Alfa repeatedly refer to Mademba in the narration?

3. Why does Alfa think both the Germans and his own allied soldiers flee from him?

4. What does Alfa let the reader know, through his narration, about the way his best friend Mademba died?

5. Why does Alfa think the mad are useful on the battlefield?

6. Why does Alfa not want to reveal where he is hiding the severed hands of the Germans to Captain Armand?

7. What does Alfa say he becomes when he goes out to seek the vengeance on German's for Mademba's death?

8. What changes between Alfa and the rest of the soldiers after Jean-Baptiste's death?

9. What does Alfa suspect about Sack's translation to him from Captain Armand?

10. What does Alfa often see in his enemy's eyes before he kills him?

(see the answer keys)

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