View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. In what building do Immaculee and the other Tutsi refugees stay in the RPF camp?

2. Who in Rwanda demands English-speaking UN Peacekeepers?

3. At least how much weight has Immaculee lost by the beginning of "The Gift of Tongues"?

4. What is the name of the woman who had been hiding Malaba before she arrives at the pastor's house?

5. With whom is Immaculee reunited in late 1995?

Short Essay Questions

1. For what does the pastor ask the women to pray with him and why?

2. Why does Immaculee say that John squandered the opportunity for love between them?

3. What does Immaculee hope her words can do for survivors of holocausts and for those subject to violence everywhere?

4. What international efforts are described in "A Gathering of Orphans" about the Rwandan massacres?

5. How does Immaculee finally manage to get a job working for the United Nations?

6. Why do the Hutu think that the French coming to Rwanda would be a boon to their genocidal efforts?

7. What do Major Ntwali do for Immaculee and her friends in "On to Kigali"?

8. Why does Aloise offer Immaculee and her friends a place to stay in Kigali?

9. How do Immaculee and the other Tutsi women make it past the Interahamwe in "The Pain of Freedom"?

10. How do the children of the pastor react to learning of the women who had been hiding in the pastor's bathroom?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

After having escaped the hellish bathroom in which she is imprisoned for three months, Immaculee learns to become grateful for even the simplest and most mundane of pleasures. Examine this relativity of the quality of life in a thoughtful and considerate essay. What is meant by the phrase "quality of life"? How does one judge or determine the quality of life? In what things, actions, or possibilities does one's quality of life consist? How does this judgment shift according to circumstances and situations? How does it shift for Immaculee? What does this demonstrate about human nature and human living?

Essay Topic 3

Consumed with fear and overwhelmed with propaganda, many of the people in Immaculee's life, who are otherwise good people, are at times given over to irrational states of mind. Using numerous examples from the text, explicate how irrationality takes hold of a person's mind and what the effects are. Whom does Immaculee encounter in states of irrationality? How do these people become irrational? What sources contribute to their irrationality? What sorts of things do they believe, and how does this show them as lacking in rationality? What are the consequences of their irrational thinking and behavior?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 975 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample