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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. Where were the Roman ruins that Balakian wanted to visit while in Lebanon?

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

3. In what year were Turkish government archives from the genocide period first opened?

4. In what year did the Young Turks take over the crumbling Ottoman Empire?

5. How many katchkars were at the Holy Martyrs Armenian Church in Der Zor?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. How did the Turks use the geography of the land to make it easier to kill Armenians?

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

5. Why is Der Zor considered the Armenian equivalent of Auschwitz?

6. How did American Ambassador Morgenthau attempt to help the Armenians?

7. What were the Young Turks like in terms of personality and education?

8. How did Balakian's aunts justify the family's inability to talk about the genocide when he was a child?

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

10. How did the atmosphere of Syria differ from that of Lebanon when Balakian visited in 2005?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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?

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

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?

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