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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 career did Mahmud pursue?

2. What did the 3:00 a.m. phone call label Bilquis?

3. What family member did Bilquis approach first?

4. What did the holy spirit gradually teach Bilquis to do?

5. With whom did Bilquis celebrate Christmas?

Short Essay Questions

1. What did Bilquis discover about her personality through her experience with the children and the plum tree?

2. What happened to Bilquis' family members who had been coming to visit her?

3. What were the negative and positive results of the Christmas party?

4. Why did Bilquis decide not to replace all of the servants she lost?

5. What pressure did the community put upon Bilquis?

6. What radical idea did Bilquis decide would revive the Sunday fellowship meetings?

7. What personal significance did Bilquis place upon the conference in Singapore?

8. What did Bilquis learn when the village woman did not return to thank her for her help?

9. Why did the idea of leaving Pakistan seem enormous to Bilquis?

10. What did Bilquis learn about repentance that she calls a "beautiful secret"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In your essay, discuss the differences you see between Bilquis' life as a Pakistani and the life she might have experienced as a Western woman. Use the following questions as the beginning of your thinking: Why does she not drive? Why does she have to ask her servants whether her grandson has eaten? Why does she have to learn from her servants where her family is and what their intentions are toward her? Are these situations governed by cultural mores that are peculiar to her time and place?

Essay Topic 2

As Bilquis' story progresses, both she and the reader sense an impending doom that does not come to pass. She never learns what might have happened to her and Mahmud had she not hurried out of the country. In your essay, discuss this information gap. Is it disappointing to you? Why or why not?

Essay Topic 3

Bilquis speaks of feeling satisfied and complete when she is living "in the glory," and dark and sad when she is not. Yet many of her experiences "in the glory" are sad rather than joyful. In your essay, explore what the feeling she is attempting to describe might be like. Cite examples from the story to support your idea.

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