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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. Who does Ngũgĩ run into at a tailor shop in Kikuyi?

2. What university’s opening lead to secondary schools becoming more focused on college prep?

3. As the focus of school shifted to preparing students for college, local knowledge was replaced by what at Alliance?

4. Which of Ngũgĩ’s family members worked at European owned tea estates?

5. What was the name of the newspaper students read aloud each week in the Alliance Dining Hall?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the significance of Ngũgĩ’s Alliance uniform when he saw Good Wallace. How did he feel? How did Good Wallace react?

2. In what ways does Ngũgĩ say Alliance used schools of the American South as a model when it first opened?

3. What did Ngũgĩ learn happened to his mother while he was at school?

4. Ngũgĩ says that schools were separate and unequal, thus sports were the only way to compare abilities. What does he say the games between Alliance and other all white schools became a metaphor for?

5. Why was Ngũgĩ so happy to return home after first term exams?

6. Why are Ngũgĩ, Wanjai and Leonard late getting back from Nairobi Saturday?

7. Why and when did the Saturday Evening paper begin and what did Ngũgĩ like about it?

8. How does Ngũgĩ define villagization?

9. What performance did Ngũgĩ help put on in Limuru and what were the two parts?

10. What is a memoir?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write a short essay on the teacher, Joseph Kariuki and his significance to the story. Why was he an important figure at Alliance? What made him different?

Essay Topic 2

David Martin’s ability to speak to Ngũgĩ and have him accept Jesus is an example of a speaker able to convince its audience. What do you think it takes to be an effective speaker and to make an effective argument? Why do you think Martin’s words touched Ngũgĩ at that time in his life?

Essay Topic 3

Analyze the passage of Pilgrim’s Progress read by Edward Carey Francis on page 42. Why do you think he reads this particular passage? What significance does this have to the story and the title?

(see the answer keys)

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