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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 popular song was played at Lenny Cohen's bar mitzvah?

2. At what age did Aunt Nona begin institutional schooling?

3. How many minutes were Balakian's phone calls restricted to when he was twelve?

4. What meat did the Balakian family frequently eat for dinner?

5. Where had Balakian learned the stories of the Bible?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did sports help heal the rift between Balakian and his father?

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

3. How did Balakian's family's obsession with style reflect their history?

4. How did Balakian's school term paper on Turkey mark a turning point in his relationship with his father?

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

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

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

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

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

10. What did the phrase "the old country" mean to Balakian as a child?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Balakian's aunts were deeply critical of American suburban life, believing that it lacked culture and refinement. Write a compare and contrast essay looking at both the attitudes of the family members toward the suburbs versus the city and the realities they encountered in their separate worlds. Include ways in which the cities and suburbs were similar as well as ways in which they were markedly different. Compare the cultural offerings as well as the sense of community in the two areas.

Essay Topic 2

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?

Essay Topic 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

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