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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. When the five-year-old boy that reminds Arn of his little brother sneaks out night after night, returning only in the morning, what does Arn eventually find out he is doing?
(a) He is attacking the Khmer Rouge soldiers from the jungle.
(b) He is eating dead people's flesh in the mango grove.
(c) He is stealing rice from the kitchen.
(d) He is climbing trees to eat the fruit.

2. What happens to the old man who is Arn's first music teacher?
(a) He dies of exhaustion from the effort needed to help Arn learn the intricacies of his instrument.
(b) He escapes into the jungle in the middle of the night.
(c) The Khmer Rouge soldiers kill him and bury him in the mango grove once he is finished teaching Arn the required songs.
(d) He retires from teaching and is allowed to go back to his family in a nearby camp.

3. When the new music teacher is too overcome by his own sadness to teach the children, Arn teaches them himself, instructing them to hit the strings lightly, like the wings of what bird?
(a) A starling.
(b) A hummingbird.
(c) A swallow.
(d) A robin.

4. Who tells Arn's aunt about Arn and Munny seeing the American movie?
(a) Mali.
(b) Sophea.
(c) Munny.
(d) Sojeat.

5. After the children in the band have had no rice for many days, the Khmer Rouge tell them they are getting a special dinner of banana peels, rice husks, and rotten pieces of food. Arn knows that this is usually the food given to which kind of farm animal?
(a) A chicken.
(b) A pig.
(c) A goat.
(d) A horse.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why does the kitchen girl give Arn extra food?

2. What does Arn say that convinces the new music teacher to make more of an effort to teach the children?

3. In what country is Arn's hometown?

4. Why do Arn's sister and aunt break down crying when Arn gives them a treat?

5. What do the Khmer Rouge soldiers lack that makes the soldiers associated with the Prince doubt their power?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Arn tell the reader about his family background within the exposition part of the story?

2. What are the signs that lead Arn to think that perhaps the Mango Grove is a mass burial site used by the Khmer Rouge to inter their victims?

3. 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?

4. When Arn finally realizes the true purpose of the band's music, he is shocked and saddened. What is that purpose and how does it transform Arn's idea of the music he plays with the other members of the band under Mek's guidance?

5. 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?

6. Why do the Khmer Rouge burn everyone's clothes and all of their material belongings?

7. 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?

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

9. 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?

10. What do Arn and his little brother Munny do after they sneak in to see the American movie and what happens to make them hide?

(see the answer keys)

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