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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. Why did the brown girls sneak into The Flea as young girls?

2. In The Things We Carry, what is NOT an example given by the narrator for something the girls bring home?

3. In Hyper/Visible/In/Visible, how do the brown girls who climb up the ranks in their chosen fields feel?

4. What business does the author hint at almost came to the brown girls’ neighborhood?

5. What do the letters brought back from the Motherland reveal about the brown girls’ parents?

Short Essay Questions

1. How are the girls changed by their visits to the Motherland?

2. When the brown girls meet up in Reunion, what are their mutual complaints about college?

3. What seems to have led to Trish’s fatal car accident?

4. How does “Meanwhile, in Queens” begin?

5. How do the girls stand out as Americans while in the Motherland?

6. What does the narrator say the girls bring home from the Motherland?

7. Why are the brothers in Our Brothers sent to prison?

8. What is Jenny about?

9. Why do the girls who leave Queens force themselves to stay away at college?

10. How do the residents feel about the tech company that threatened to come into the neighborhood?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Overall, what does 'brown and brown' mean, according to the narrator? What might it mean to the reader? How can people of all colors, races, and genders relate to this? What does this say about the importance of color?

Essay Topic 2

Racism and prejudice is an important theme in Brown Girls. What are two examples of racism or other prejudice in this novel? Is this surprising to you? Why or why not? How does this affect you? How does this theme permeate the entire novel?

Essay Topic 3

Brown Girls reads like poetry. Why? What about it makes it feels like both prose and poetry? Why might Daphne Palasi Andreades have chosen to do this? How does this affect the reader?

(see the answer keys)

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