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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. Which of the following does the narrator’s uncle Naseem cite “as proof of his point about the fundamental military basis of great leadership” (76)?

2. In what program is the student who complained to the administration that Moroni was speaking against the troops by questioning Desert Storm?

3. In what year is the narrator born?

4. How long is the letter Moroni writes the narrator following the 11 September 2001 attacks (xvi)?

5. Whom does the narrator quote as saying “Never trust the artist. Trust the tale” (25)?

Short Essay Questions

1. 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?

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

3. What does the narrator come to learn is the intent behind questions about whether his play is autobiographical?

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

5. What parallels does the narrator draw between his father and Trump when initially discussing their first meeting?

6. What form does Latif’s bent towards charitable work take throughout his medical career?

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. To what causes does the narrator ascribe the British decision to afford India and Pakistan independence?

9. What struggles does Moroni cite as “fires beneath her crucible” in her letter to the narrator following the 11 September 2001 attacks (xvi)?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Consider the quote from Montaigne’s “Of Experience” the narrator presents: “I take it for true that dreams are honest reflections of our inclinations; but there is art to making sense of them” (104). What is meant by the quote? What from the narrator indicates that meaning? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 2

While conversing with the narrator, a Pennsylvania state trooper remarks that “when [one of the leaders of the 11 September 2001 attacks] returned his rental car on September ninth, he called the rental agency to tell them the oil light was on. Can you believe that? He didn’t care about the three thousand people they killed, but he cared about the next person driving the car” (93). What accounts for the disjunction? What in the book and in experience tells you that it does? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

Consider the comment that “America had begun as a colony and that a colony it remained, that is, a place still defined by its plunder, where enrichment was paramount and civil order always an afterthought” (xiii). Is the definition of “colony” presented in the comment accurate? What in the novel and in experience indicates that it is / not? How does it do so?

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