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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What did the author and Mayelene have in common?
(a) They both had crushes on a white boy named Lorenzo.
(b) They both had a mix of white and black ancestry.
(c) They lived in the same house together.
(d) They both hated the entire idea of Valentine's Day.

2. To what does the author compare Patricia when he describes her skill for maximizing petrol?
(a) A manual laborer.
(b) A miser.
(c) A madwoman.
(d) The sophisticates stop-start system used in hybrid cars.

3. How did the author feel about his friend Zaheera?
(a) He thought she was annoying.
(b) He was using her to get closer to her friend, Johanna.
(c) He was using her to get closer to her friend, Gary.
(d) He had a massive crush on her.

4. What does the author mean when he says that Babiki and her family were amabhujua?
(a) He means that they were partially descended from Europeans.
(b) He means that they knew secret shamanic traditions.
(c) He means that they were poor but spent money on expensive luxuries.
(d) He means that they were extremely skilled accountants.

5. Why were the homes in Highlands North surrounded by six-foot-tall electrified walls?
(a) Highlands North was a government facility, housing top-secret agents.
(b) The walls were not electrified; that was just something Patricia told the author so that he would stop trying to climb them.
(c) The white residents feared black South Africans.
(d) The homeowner's association was run by a security specialist.

Short Answer Questions

1. How did the author know Tom and Bongani?

2. What did the author find inappropriate about the relationship advice Patricia gave him when he was a child?

3. Why could the author not ask Maylene out right away for Valentine's Day?

4. What is the single official language of South Africa?

5. What happened to the unemployment rate in South Africa after apartheid?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why could none of the police recognize the author in the security footage?

2. Why was the author late to the dance?

3. What attribute of the author's aided him in his business fetching lunch for people but also prevented his romantic success?

4. Why did the author think it made sense for Mayelene to leave him and date Lorenzo instead?

5. Why did Abel initially agree to loan the author his BMW?

6. How was the author able to pose as an American rapper for the talent show in Hammanskraal?

7. What geographical explanation does the author give when he states that "it's physically impossible for [Alexandra] to change" (201)?

8. Why did the girls in the author's grade at H. A. Jack Primary think that he and Maylene would be perfect for each other?

9. How multilingual is South Africa?

10. How was the author eventually able to make friends at Highlands North?

(see the answer keys)

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