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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. When little Eva worried about her parents fighting, what did her father tell her about their marriage that soothed Eva's worries?

2. What color were the goldfish at the pond that Eva and her parents often visited in Poland?

3. In her later life, who did Pani Orlovska write a book about?

4. What did Eva and her sister have sewn into the pockets of their skirts when they sailed for Canada?

5. In Eva's Poland apartment, what was the "second" room?

Short Essay Questions

1. What emotion did Eva have when she heard the Polish National Anthem as her ship left for Canada?

2. What was an apparatchik in Poland and who, according to Eva, was one? What did they do? What was their function in the political landscape?

3. How did Eva gather memories before the family emigrated to Canada?

4. What was a sanatorium and why did Eva's mother have to go to a sanatorium for a while?

5. How did Pani Ruta live during the war and why was her family untouched by what was happening to the Jews?

6. Why was it important for Eva's mother to have a maid? What role did this maid play in her idea of what a homemaker was?

7. Why did Eva consider the landing of the Batory the end of the narrative of her childhood?

8. What changed in the friendship with Basia after she returned from the camp for young communists?

9. What was the difference between the books that Eva choose from the library and books she had to read in school in Poland?

10. What, according to Eva, threw an "odd light" on Pani Orlovska?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How does the age difference between Eva and her sister affect Eva's sister? How is she more quickly "Americanized?" Why do you think this is? At what ages did the girls emigrate? Why is this important? Support your essay with quotes from the book.

Essay Topic 2

Why is English the language of Eva's adulthood? Why does she stop translating in her head? What happens that makes it possible for Eva to think and dream in English? Why is this an important step in her development?

Essay Topic 3

Compare the meaning of friendship in Poland and Canada through the eyes of the author? What about her friendships in New York? Does she finally get the kind of friends she wants? How does she describe them?

(see the answer keys)

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