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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. In Patriotic, what is the main reason given for why the brown girls debate becoming mothers?

2. According to the narrator, how is making art a prison sentence?

3. What has taken the place of The Flea?

4. What led to improvements on Rockaway Beach?

5. In Part Three, Welcome to Mars, what is compared to Mars?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. How has Rockaway Beach changed in “Meanwhile, in Queens”?

3. What are the ghosts mentioned in “Ghosts”?

4. How do the girls feel about their chosen fields of study in Duty?

5. How does one of the girls realize that Trish had not been happy in a long time?

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

7. Why do the brown girls feel like going away to college is like going to Mars?

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

9. What are the problems the girls who leave and the girls who stay see in each other?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The plot is quite linear, as Daphne Palasi Andreades tells the story following a timeline of the brown girls as they age. How do you as the reader feel about this approach to storytelling? Why do you feel this way? If you were the author, would you have written it differently? Why or why not?

Essay Topic 2

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?

Essay Topic 3

By Part Seven, Shadows and A Reckoning, the relationships between the brown girls and white boys and girls have changed dramatically since they first met earlier in Brown Girls. How have their relationships changed? How have the attitudes of the brown girls towards their white partners also changed? What has led to these changes? What does this say about the brown girls? How do you, as the reader, feel about these struggling relationships? What do you believe is the best course of action in these situations? Why?

(see the answer keys)

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