View a FREE sample

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 Armenian refuges settle in Anjar?

2. What senator pushed for a 75th anniversary commemoration bill in 1989?

3. In what year was Morgenthau appointed ambassador to Turkey?

4. In what decade did Abdul Hamid massacre Armenians?

5. Approximately how many Armenian women were forced to dance in the Diarbekir square when Dovey saw them?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does numbness help people who have endured great horrors?

2. What did Dovey mean when she said that Turkish culture was theft?

3. How has the Turkish government used its influence to prevent honest discussion of the Armenian genocide over the years?

4. How does genocide denial affect the survivors and their descendants?

5. Why did Balakian eventually come to see his family's silence about the genocide as a gift?

6. Why did Aunt Anna likely embrace surrealism rather than realism in literature?

7. Why did the Armenians form reform movements under Ottoman rule during the 1890s?

8. What was the deeper significance of the 500 pairs of shoes stolen by the Turks from Balakian's grandfather?

9. Why did Balakian question his failure to ask questions as a child when he saw the names of the dead listed on his grandmother's compensation documents?

10. How was the Armenian-Lebanese town of Anjar settled?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Prior to beginning the genocide of the Armenians, the Turkish government conducted a campaign of propaganda against the Armenian people and other Christians. How does the dehumanization of other people make it easier to kill them? How did the long-term treatment of Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire pave the way for the eventual extermination of a race? Would it have been possible for the Turks to have carried out the genocide if conditions had been different over the years?

Essay Topic 2

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 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?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,125 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample