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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. What degree was Balakian's girlfriend working on when he visited her, instead of going to his grandmother's memorial service?

2. What junk food did Balakian reminisce about eating at the Dillstein's house?

3. Whose voice did Balakian describe as hitting him "as broken glass under a tire"?

4. On how many hills was Constantinople built?

5. How many miles away was Tenafly from Teaneck?

Short Essay Questions

1. What was Balakian's reaction to the folktales his grandmother would frequently tell him?

2. Did Balakian's father have a strong connection to Constantinople, and how did that reflect the city's tumultuous history?

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

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

5. Why did Balakian's grandmother tell him a story from the genocide while he was delirious with fever?

6. What impression did the writer, William Saroyan, make on Balakian during the party at his aunt's apartment?

7. In what ways did life at Auntie Anna's and Uncle Steve's house differ from life in the Balakian household?

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

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

10. In what way was Balakian's attachment to the Jewish families in his first neighborhood ultimately superficial, and could it have been deeper?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Turkish government officials and their supporters have claimed that the denial of the genocide is a form of protected free speech. Do you believe that? Can speech that denies a central historical truth be protected under free speech statutes? Does this denial make it more difficult for Armenians to exercise their own freedom of speech to publicize the genocide? Does the granting of free speech rights mean that all positions must be treated as legitimate sides in a debate?

Essay Topic 2

Research the role of Ambassador Morgenthau in bringing the facts of the Armenian genocide to light. How did he attempt to help the Armenians? How did he attempt to negotiate with the Turkish leaders and convince them to stop what they were doing? Did the United States provide sufficient support to Morgenthau? Was their disbelief in America, and did the U.S. government do enough to try to intervene? Did the relative novelty of a massive effort to destroy an entire people hinder the world's response to the massacres? Did the ongoing world war hinder the world's response?

Essay Topic 3

Balakian wrote about his father's love of sports and how that formed a bridge between the two. Write an essay exploring how sports can form a bond between fathers and sons. How can fathers and sons express their love for one another through a shared interest in sports? Was Peter's father able to express his love for his son in any other way? Did Peter understand that his father was expressing his love for him through sports while he was still a child? Or did he not realize that until he reached adulthood? If he did not understand it until adulthood, did that affect his relationship with his father in childhood?

(see the answer keys)

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