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

2. On what do Leonard and Rose flee their burnt home?

3. How does the youth movement of which Immaculee learns at the University attract youth?

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

5. In what part of the country is the war in Rwanda primarily being fought while Immaculee is pursuing higher learning?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Augustine's relationship to Immaculee's family?

2. What is the message Immaculee receives from Psalm 91 when she first receives the Bible?

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

4. Why is Immaculee Ilibagiza initially denied a scholarship to high school?

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

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

7. How does Immaculee, while traveling to a wedding with Damascene, pass by the Interahamwe roadblock?

8. Immaculee's Catholic faith is mentioned early and often in Left to Tell; how is she raised to perceive her faith?

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

10. How is Immaculee embarrassed on her first day at junior high school?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In the moment of his greatest compassion, Pastor Murinzi, speaking to his children and pointing to the Tutsi women he has been hiding in his bathroom for over 90 days, tells them that "There but for the grace of God go any one of you." Analyze the significance of this statement in the context of the Rwandan genocide. What does the Pastor mean? How could the same thing have happened to any of his children? What does this statement reveal about the moral character of the pastor? What does it demonstrate about the pastor's understanding of the genocide? What does it show about the nature of genocide in general? What does it illuminate concerning the dignity of human life?

Essay Topic 2

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?

Essay Topic 3

While in the bathroom, surrounded by war, violence, and the death of loved ones, as well as a total evaporation of personal freedom, Immaculee finds a means to transcend the horror. Examine the concept of transcendence and the particular way in which Immaculee finds it, in a well-planned analytical essay. What is the nature of violence, war, and all such horrible things? In what sorts of experiences does one encounter these horrible things? Contrariwise, what does it mean to transcend? How does one transcend the horrible? In what sort of experiences does one encounter the transcendent? How does Immaculee find the transcendent? From what does it free her?

(see the answer keys)

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