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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. How long would the taste of the Atrabrine pills that Ned had to take stay with him?

2. What was the name of Ned's sixth grade teacher who said he would never go anywhere and would only ever herd sheep?

3. In Chapter 15, how many men were in the Third Division, Ninth Regiment?

4. What color was the hair of the Solomon Islanders because they dyed it with lime juice?

5. What words would preface messages in Navajo code to alert radio operators that the Navajo were not the enemy?

Short Essay Questions

1. What was Operation Forager?

2. What happened when the invasion of Guam was delayed?

3. In Chapter 22, why was Ned sent to Hawaii?

4. How did Ned try to avoid taking Atabrine, and how did the watch officer get him and the other Navajos to take it?

5. What did the Navajo believe about corpses, and how did they deal with that in combat?

6. What happened the first time that Bill McCabe and Sam Begay used Navajo code?

7. What did Ned see from the ship when the shelling began on Bougainville?

8. What was security like for the code?

9. What did it take to secure Guadalcanal?

10. In Chapter 15, what desert exercise did Ned participate in, and why did the whites do so poorly?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In the novel, some characters are more thoroughly described than others. Who are some characters that are merely named in passing or have a minor role in the novel? What is the importance of these flat characters to the storyline? In what way do these characters make the main characters more colorful or interesting? When there is conflict, what type of role do these flat characters play?

Essay Topic 2

Irony is a literary device where the real meaning of words is contradicted or concealed. Where does the author use irony in the book? Why is it ironic that the Navajo language is used for a military code?

Essay Topic 3

In the Marines, Ned learned important things about whites and Indians. What important things did Ned learn about whites and Indians in the Marines? Why did he realize that white men were not superior to Indians?

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