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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. What does Eamonn do with Isma's cup of coffee in Chapter One?

2. What does the note Aneeka leaves Eamonn one night say?

3. Who is Alice now dating?

4. Why does Eamonn stop drinking?

5. What does the airport interrogation officer say about Isma's jacket in Chapter One?

Short Essay Questions

1. How has Karamat Lone felt about Eamonn's previous girlfriends and their parents?

2. Why does Karamat Lone say this is "his fault" that Eamonn is dating Aneeka?

3. How does Eamonn think of Isma as he walks through London in Chapter Three?

4. What does Aneeka find out from Aunty Naseem in Chapter Two, and how does she react?

5. Why does Aneeka tell Eamonn she got into the tube with him? Why does she say she fell in love with him?

6. What does Isma think of in Chapter One when she first sees Eamonn?

7. What is the "old muck" about Karamat Lone and how does he respond?

8. What shifts the balance between Aneeka and Eamonn's relationship in Chapter Three?

9. What does Eamonn see Aneeka doing in the morning in Chapter Three? What does she respond when he asks?

10. In Chapter Three, what does Aneeka tell Eamonn she think about his father?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Parvaiz waiting in the cafe says that "The language of violence, spoken by the powerful of all nations, erased the distinctions beneath the surface" (167-8). What is the language of violence Parvaiz is speaking of? Choose two examples in the novel of language of the powerful and how this language creates erasure of distinction.

Essay Topic 2

Parviaz’s sisters assume he is in a romantic relationship while he is being radicalized. Eamonn’s friends joke he is being radicalized while he is in a romantic relationship. How are the assumptions and roles placed on these two young men both similar and different? What expectations are placed on them because they are men instead of women?

Essay Topic 3

Mr. and Mrs. Rahimi tell Eamonn that the small things are the big things. What are the small things in the novel? What are the big things? How do the small eventually become the big? Choose one big thing and write how small things in the novel add up to the big event taking place.

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