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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 poet's work was the class dissecting when Balakian challenged another student's interpretation of the words?
(a) Hart Crane.
(b) Robert Frost.
(c) Sylvia Plath.
(d) William Butler Yeats.

2. Who was driving when the young men crashed the car in the middle of the night, in "Saturday Autumn II"?
(a) Peter Balakian.
(b) Ed Harrison.
(c) Tom Shadek.
(d) Bill Worth.

3. Whose biography was Peter's grandmother reading when he came down late at night to get a bite to eat?
(a) Abraham Lincoln.
(b) Eleanor Roosevelt.
(c) Mary Todd Lincoln.
(d) Teddy Roosevelt.

4. What kind of ice cream did grandmother buy Peter when they accidentally got off the subway in Harlem?
(a) Creamsicle.
(b) Fudgsicle.
(c) Popsicle.
(d) Italian ice.

5. How many months worth of canned evaporated milk were Americans advised to have on hand during the Cuban Missile Crisis?
(a) Twelve monhs.
(b) Eighteen months.
(c) Six months.
(d) Twenty-four months.

Short Answer Questions

1. What advice did Balakian (at the urging of his aunt) reluctantly seek from William Saroyan?

2. What color were the kitchen cabinets in the Balakian's new home in Tenafly?

3. To which American writer did Balakian send his poems while at Bucknell College?

4. In what year was Balakian sick with the measles?

5. What Ginsberg poem did Balakian's mother want several copies of?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe Balakian' s father.

2. How did Balakian react to seeing his father perform emergency medical care to the heart attack victim at the football game?

3. How did Balakian's memorial poem for his grandmother reflect his Armenian past?

4. What were some of the reasons Balakian likely did not seek out information about Armenia while he was still in college?

5. Why were books so important to Balakian's Aunt Nona?

6. How did Balakian's grandmother continue to affect him even after her death?

7. Why was Balakian's Aunt Anna so opposed to American suburbia?

8. Why did Balakian's father send him the newspaper clipping about the Armenian Soviet republic and how did Peter react?

9. How did Balakian's family's attachment to food reflect their ancestors' history?

10. Why did Balakian react so strongly to Allen Ginsberg's reading of his poem "Kaddish"?

(see the answer keys)

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