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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. For what holiday does Immaculee return home from the University?

2. Who treats Immaculee with contempt when she walks into the pastor's living room?

3. What is the acronym of the radio station popular among students at the University?

4. With what weapon in hand does Immaculee's father charge at the Interahamwe alone?

5. How old is Vianney in "Farewell to the Boys"?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who makes up the populace of the Rwandese Patriotic Front, or RPF?

2. Against what does Immaculee recount arguing in "Struggling to Forgive"?

3. Describe the setting in which Immaculee is raised in the early years of her life.

4. What is the ethnic atmosphere in which Immaculee finds herself at Lycee High School?

5. Why is Damascene downcast during Immaculee's return home at Easter?

6. Under what condition does Immaculee's father allow her to date John, and why?

7. What is the only promising news that Immaculee and her family hear during the first days of the genocide?

8. What does the pastor tell the women he would do for them in "Farewell to the Boys"?

9. What is the opinion of Sembeba, the pastor's son, concerning the Tutsi?

10. What sort of content on the radio does Immaculee hear daily while she is at the University in Butare?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The group upon whose doorstop most of the blame for the actual killings during the genocide has been laid is the Interahamwe. Analyze the culpability of the group, as well as its essence, in a carefully written analytical essay. Who are the Interahamwe? What sort of people comprise the Interahamwe? What characterizes these people? In what sort of actions and pleasures do they indulge? What is their relationship to reasonable proceedings? What does this indicate about the essence of the Interahamwe? In what way does this mitigate their culpability? How is this yet far from absolving the members of the Interahamwe?

Essay Topic 2

What are the effects of mindless violence? Ultimately, it can be seen in Left to Tell that strength, devoid of reason, dehumanizes a person. Analyze the manner in which human beings are dehumanized during the Rwandan genocide. What happens to the killers in the midst of their bloodlusts? How does Immaculee describe them when they are on their rampages? How do they behave in general? How do they behave in the presence of a Tutsi? In what ways do they forfeit their humanity? Ironically, how do they treat the Tutsi? What names do they call the Tutsi, and what is significant about this?

Essay Topic 3

Contrary to the love and peace that Immaculee finds amid her struggles is the deep hatred felt and exercised by many during the Rwandan genocide. Discuss this hatred in an analytical essay which answers the following questions: why are so many people given over to hate during the genocide? How does such hatred take hold of the hearts of otherwise good and normal people? How does hate transform people that have long been friends of Immaculee and her family? What does such hatred do to the rationality of people? How does hate lessen one's humanity?

(see the answer keys)

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