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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 many siblings does Immaculee have?

2. Which tribe came to be the dominant ruling class because of others fleeing ethnic persecution?

3. What is the name of Immaculee's mother?

4. To where in the bathroom does Immaculee privately retreat?

5. To which ethnic group is Immaculee assigned during her first experience of ethnic segregation?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. What realization does Immaculee have which finally enables her to forgive the killers?

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

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

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

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

8. How does Immaculee spend most of her time in the bathroom?

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

10. Choose one word to capture the essence of Immaculee's description of her brother Damascene, and explain why it is a fitting choice.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

Left to Tell, as the story of one woman's survival of violent atrocities, can be seen as a conflict between two opposite forces: hate, embodied in the mindless, ravening Hutu Interahamwe killers, who dehumanize themselves through their own actions; and love, embodied in the gentleness and forgiveness of Immaculee Ilibagiza, who reaches a fuller human potential through her actions. Analyze this contrast in a comprehensive essay which takes into account the whole of the story. What is hate? What is love? How are they contraries? In what sorts of actions does each consist? How do actions of the former sort reduce one's humanity? How do actions of the latter type increase it? In what way does Immaculee embody love? In what way do the killers embody hate?

Essay Topic 3

As she, along with several other women, spend months in hiding in the bathroom, Immaculee lives in a sort of constant fear. Examine this fear in a well-organized essay that, using sources from the text, describes the nature of such a constant fear. What effects does it have on the person? How does it alter one's thinking, one's actions, and one's mentality? How does Immaculee in particular react to the constant fear? What are the sources of the fear? What factors contribute to this constant state of fear? When is the fear at its worst? How does such fear change over time?

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