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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 what year does Sikander sit for a real estate investment seminar?

2. In what year does Latif die?

3. To whom does the narrator ascribe the comments in his play that seem to praise or justify the 11 September 2001 attacks?

4. What time is Trump’s appointment with Sikander?

5. What meal did Sikander have with Trump at Fresco by Scotto?

Short Essay Questions

1. What reasons does Asma give for disliking The Satanic Verses?

2. With what events listed in the novel’s chronology is Trump involved?

3. What conspiracies does the narrator note hearing voiced while visiting family in Abbottabad in 2008?

4. What does the narrator cite as major disagreements his mother has with the idea of American exceptionalism that his father espouses?

5. Why does Sikander rail against Naseem after he and the narrator leave Abbottabad?

6. In what properties does Sikander invest when he tries to break into real estate?

7. What message does the narrator note is sent by the United States turning against Afghanistan and Iraq in the late 1980s and early 1990s?

8. What reasons does the narrator give for his mother not watching the news?

9. What does the narrator report valuing in Whitman when he read him initially (xvii)?

10. What does Sikander comment to Latif that he cannot do in Pakistan that he can do in the United States, and why does he say he cannot do it there?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Consider Sikander’s comment about “The whole Muslim world. Expecting failure, so failure they get” (29). What does the comment mean? Is that meaning correct? What in the novel and in experience suggests that it is or is not? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 2

Rind quotes Norbert Elias as remarking that “The established majority takes its we-image from a minority of its best, and shapes a they-image of the despised outsiders from a minority of their worst” (139). Does the novel agree with the sentiment? What in the text asserts that it does or does not? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

Consider the following comment: “As ever, interpretation has more to do with the one interpreting than the one being interpreted” (25). Is the comment true or not? What in the novel and in experience suggests that it is or is not? How does it do so?

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