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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. In what year did Balakian and his father take a Greyhound bus across the United States?

2. What kind of food did Balakian's mother claim was not fresh at the French restaurant?

3. What prize did William Saroyan turn down for his play, "The Time of Your Life," in 1943?

4. What is pakht?

5. On how many hills was Constantinople built?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why did Balakian and Auntie Anna argue about literature?

2. How did Balakian's mother differ from most of the other mothers on Crabtree Lane in Tenafly?

3. Why did Balakian's father insist his son leave the public schools and attend a private school?

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

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

6. What was Balakian's reaction to the film, The Graduate?

7. Why was Balakian so unnerved by his grandmother's constant doting on him at family gatherings?

8. How did Balakian's father's fear of germs, as well as other family member's obsession with health and safety, reflect their experiences during the genocide?

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The Turkish government has never apologized for the Armenian genocide and the world has moved on. What impact, if any, would an official Turkish apology have on the Armenian people today? Is it possible for an apology to be delivered a century later? How would the Armenian people benefit from an apology before the world? Would it free them? Would it free the Turks?

Essay Topic 2

Balakian did not learn about the Armenian genocide or his own family's experiences until he sought out that information as an adult. Even then, some family members questioned what he was doing. Did his family do him a disservice by hiding the truth from him for so many years? Would knowing the past have enabled him to have a different, deeper understanding of the ways his family members lived their lives in America? Or did keeping the truth from him enable him to have a normal American childhood before delving into the past on his own? Did his family's "protection" of him give him a solid ground on which to stand while confronting the horrific events of the past?

Essay Topic 3

Armenians in the United States--including Balakian's family--generally attempted to assimilate into American culture. How did this assimilation impact their ability to thrive after the genocide? Did assimilation mean an abandonment of Armenian culture? Or did they maintain traditions that could no longer be maintained in their wiped out homeland? Did assimilation make it easier for the survivors and their descendants to deal with the fact of genocide?

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