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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. Whose biography was Peter's grandmother reading when he came down late at night to get a bite to eat?

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

3. What stock did grandmother recommend buying after she had a dream?

4. What singer did the man in the motorcycle jacket on the bus remind Peter of?

5. How many children were in the Wall family?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

4. How did Balakian's grandmother establish a strong bond with him through cooking?

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

6. How did Balakian's grandmother react to the assault against the man on the city bus?

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 mother's behavior at the restaurant in France reflect her cultured upbringing?

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

10. When the Balakian family was preparing to move to another town, what was the deeper significance of Balakian's mother's insistence that her son not get too attached to any one place?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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?

Essay Topic 2

When the Balakian family lived in Teaneck, New Jersey, Peter felt a special kinship with the Jews. Why did he feel this connection? Was it simply a matter of being exposed to a tight-knit community or was there something deeper that Peter could not have articulated? Why did he feel left out when his own family had traditions? If he had known at the time about the Armenian genocide, would the connection have been deeper?

Essay Topic 3

Balakian wrote frequently about the central role food played in his extended family. What importance does food have in Armenian culture? How did the experience of starvation during the genocide impact Armenian immigrants to the U.S.? Would food still have had the same importance if the Armenians had not experienced starvation? How do immigrant families transmit their culture to their children through food? How do they express their love at the dinner table?

(see the answer keys)

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