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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 use to describe his own skin tone (194)?

2. To which name does the narrator report his uncle Shafat changes his own?

3. In what location does the narrator meet Asha?

4. In what year does the narrator meet Asha?

5. Where do the mittens the narrator wears after his syphilis treatment originate?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the dream technique the narrator reports having learned from Moroni?

2. What reasons does Moroni give to mistrust Freud? What reasons does she note to trust him?

3. What comments does the narrator claim to expect to receive from his parents after leaving the repair shop in Scranton?

4. What agencies does the narrator deny led to his wealth?

5. What features does the narrator initially ascribe to Rind that mark him as Pakistani, rather than Indian?

6. What does the narrator report as shocking in his review of the transcripts of proceedings against Rind’s investment company?

7. What overall project does the narrator ascribe to Rind?

8. What decorations are on the walls of the repair shop in Scranton?

9. Why does the narrator report being initially put at ease by the Pennsylvania state trooper who pulls him over?

10. How does the narrator describe Mariam Meriha (137)?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The narrator remarks that “Serious money was the only path to liberation from the indentured servitude of twenty-first-century lower- and middle-class American life” (153). Does the novel support or deny the remark? What in the text suggests it does or does not? How?

Essay Topic 2

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 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?

(see the answer keys)

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