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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. Through which of the following airports do the Kellners fly on their trip to Iran?

2. At what time do the Kellners arrive at the Portland International Airport on their trip to Iran?

3. Which of the following does Darius NOT borrow from Sohrab?

4. What size bed is Darius allotted in his grandparents’ house?

5. What is the origin of the tea Darius gives Fariba?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Ardeshir doing when Darius first sees him in Iran?

2. What is Surrender Cobra?

3. What does Darius notice when first reaching Ashkan’s store?

4. What reasons does Darius give for Stephen laughing after his backpack is broken?

5. What is meant by the phrase “Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy,” and who are prominent early examples of the phrase?

6. Why, per Darius, does he not shower after gym class at his school?

7. What occasioned Stephen stopping the fire-jumping celebration, and what caused him to resume it?

8. What reasons does Darius give for considering Jean-Luc Picard the best Star Trek captain?

9. What reasons does Darius posit for Ardeshir’s dislike of Stephen?

10. Why does Darius consider Javaneh brave?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Consider the following passage:

“[Laleh] was a replacement. An upgrade. I knew that without anyone saying it out loud.

“And I knew Stephen Kellner was relieved to have another chance, a new child who wouldn’t be such a disappointment. It was written across his face every time he smiled at her. Every time he sighed at me.

“I didn’t blame Laleh for that.

“I really didn’t.

“But sometimes I wondered if I was the one who was an accident.

“That’s normal.

“Right?” (133).

Answer Darius’s question for the novel. Is it normal? What in the novel says it is or is not? How does it say so?

Essay Topic 2

Darius muses on the word “Aryan” and its multiple—and multiply uncomfortable—meanings (13-14). What other words have such shades of meaning in the novel? What in the text indicates those meanings, and how does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

Darius muses that “she [Fariba] and Babou were seated in the very front, the binary suns of the Bahrami family solar system” (174). Explicate the metaphor (e.g, what are its tenor and vehicle, what does it imply about those encompassed by it, where does it fail?).

(see the answer keys)

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