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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. How does the author describe the people on Rockaway Beach in Meanwhile, In Queens?

3. How do friends react when the girls call and say they are taking a trip to see the Motherland?

4. In Our Brothers, why do the brothers receive prison sentences?

5. When some girls say they are not ready to have children, how does the narrator respond?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Jenny about?

2. How do the various family members react to the brothers receiving prison sentences?

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

4. What does Daphne Palasi Andreades call the girls who change their majors to art?

5. In Trish, how do many of the girls feel about their careers now that they are two years out of college?

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

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

8. What famous people are from St. Albans, New York?

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

10. What does the narrator say is the thing the brown girls love most about what they see in the motherland?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Struggle is an important theme in Brown Girls. How do the girls struggle? Do they overcome these obstacles? If so, how? If not, why not? How is this a universal theme? How do you personally relate to this theme and the characters and events in this novel?

Essay Topic 2

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?

Essay Topic 3

Queens has changed since the brown girls were little. How has it changed? What do the girls think about these changes? What do these changes reveal about the locals, as well as those in high positions in local and federal government?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 963 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample