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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. How does Alfa help Mademba prepare for war enough so that he will be accepted into the army?
(a) By showing him how to use a rifle.
(b) By showing him movies of war.
(c) By training him with a sword and feeding him a lot of food to help him gain weight.
(d) By reading him war stories.

2. What does the Fula nomads' proverb say, according to Alfa?
(a) Sometimes you bite the tiger, sometimes the tiger bites you.
(b) Red sky at night, sailor's delight.
(c) At dawn you can already know if the day will be good or bad.
(d) A penny saved is a penny earned.

3. Why does everyone smile at Alfa in the recuperation center?
(a) They like his jokes.
(b) He smiles at them first.
(c) They think is hair is funny.
(d) They are afraid of him.

4. What does Alfa put on the trunk where he keeps the severed hands to keep people out of it?
(a) A talisman.
(b) A knife.
(c) A totem.
(d) A smear of tar.

5. What does Alfa think about his own physical appearance?
(a) He is average-looking.
(b) He is strong and handsome.
(c) He is weak and not attractive.
(d) He is too short to be considered attractive by western standards, but he is attractive in his own village.

Short Answer Questions

1. What language did Mademba know how to speak that Alfa does not know how to speak?

2. What do the soldiers seem to think about Jean-Baptiste and the hand he stole?

3. Which soldier does Alfa extract from the trench to kill in Chapter XII?

4. What does Alfa think Fary Thiam started doing before he did?

5. Why should soldiers not smoke in a war, according to Alfa?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Penndo Ba leave Alfa's father?

2. What happens to Alfa's father when Penndo Ba fails to return?

3. What does Alfa bring to the hospital with him, and why?

4. Who takes Alfa in after his mother leaves and fails to return?

5. What does Captain Armand do when the soldiers disobey him?

6. Why does Captain Armand tell Alfa he looked the other way at first when Alfa brought the severed hands back?

7. Why does everyone think Penndo Ba never returned to Gandiol?

8. What does Alfa come to believe about God's role in what happens in war in Part III?

9. What does Alfa think his fellow soldiers think of his intellect?

10. Why does Alfa suspect his father did not let him go with Penndo Ba when she left?

(see the answer keys)

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