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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What event precipitates the band members being fed real rice and being forced to practice their music all night long?
(a) A performance for the Vietnamese soldiers.
(b) A performance at a large meeting for all of the highest-ranking Khmer Rouge leaders.
(c) A performance for the American soldiers.
(d) A traveling performance for all the people who have resettled in their home villages since the evacuation.

2. What does Arn do with the lump of sugar the kitchen girl gives him after she is done with him?
(a) He gobbles it down once he leaves her tent.
(b) He throws it into the jungle.
(c) He gives it to Kha.
(d) He sneaks into Mek's tent and shares it with him.

3. Once Arn and his group is allowed to stop walking and they form a camp, what two groups do the Khmer Rouge soldiers separate the captives into?
(a) Former peasants and former city-dwellers.
(b) Families with children and families without children.
(c) Males and females.
(d) Cambodians and Vietnamese.

4. How do Arn and his little brother Munny get in to see the American movie?
(a) They sneak in through the back door exit.
(b) They hide behind the skirts of a large paying customer.
(c) They beg for money outside the theater.
(d) They borrow money from their older sister, Jorami.

5. In order to add to his fame even more and thus add to his probability of survival, Arn adds what talent to his repertoire in addition to his playing of the khim?
(a) Dancing.
(b) Acting out theater scenes.
(c) Playing the fiddle.
(d) Storytelling.

Short Answer Questions

1. What dance do Arn and Munny perform for the crowd outside the theater?

2. When the trucks of Khmer Rouge soldiers first arrive, what does the radio tell the Cambodian people to do?

3. Why does Arn at first hesitate to volunteer when a high-ranking Khmer Rouge soldier asks who wants to play music in a band within the camp?

4. How do the Khmer Rouge soldiers react when Arn asks them if they want to play soccer with him?

5. What lesson does Arn learn from his experience getting told on by another boy in the camp?

Short Essay Questions

1. When the current leader of the camp tells Mek that he and band will soon be going somewhere new, they are all terrified that they will be killed instead and that this is just another instance of the Khmer Rouge's euphemisms. However, they are not killed and what happens instead introduces the theme of fame into the novel. What happens in lieu of their deaths?

2. How does the author use the juxtaposition between the kitchen girl's molestation of Arn and the comfort he then seeks within Mek's embrace? What is her purpose in using this juxtaposition?

3. How is the theme of generosity demonstrated in the scene when the children are finally fed rice in anticipation of their first performance for the Khmer Rouge soldiers?

4. What is the author's purpose in including the character of the five-year-old child whom Arn finds feasting on the flesh of the dead?

5. When the evacuees are finally allowed to stop to set up camp in groups of around a thousand people each, what do Arn and his little sister Sophea discover about the Khmer Rouge's philosophies when they sneak around listening to the soldiers' conversations?

6. What ploy do the Khmer Rouge use to get the government soldiers to come to the airport and what happens once they arrive?

7. When a soldier from Arn's home village comes to camp, what does he offer Arn in exchange for some rice and what does Arn learn as a result of accepting his offered deal?

8. Before the arrival of the Khmer Rouge in his village, how does Arn feel about the war he knows is being fought outside his town and what does he spend most of his time doing?

9. What is ironic about the fact that the rice crop falls significantly short of the Khmer Rouge's expectations and they then reduce everyone's food allotment even further than before?

10. What is the significance of the escape from camp by the boy from Arn's village?

(see the answer keys)

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