View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the stringed instrument called that Arn learns to play in the band?
(a) Khim.
(b) Viola.
(c) Harpsichord.
(d) Dulcimer.

2. What method does Mek, the new music teacher, tell Arn that he uses to survive?
(a) He watches the birds fly.
(b) He dreams.
(c) He composes music.
(d) He thinks about one hour at a time.

3. Arn eventually discovers the real reason that the band is asked to play at several specific times each day. What is the reason?
(a) To make the field workers dance at regular intervals to amuse the soldiers.
(b) To keep the band members from running away into the jungle.
(c) To cover the sound of skulls being cracked as the Khmer Rouge murder captives.
(d) To keep the spirits of the soldiers high.

4. Why does the kitchen girl give Arn extra food?
(a) Because he has become famous from playing his kihm and she admires him.
(b) Because she says he looks too skinny.
(c) Because she is a member of the Khmer Rouge and realizes that he needs strength in order to do his job and play music well.
(d) Because he threatens to hurt her if she does not.

5. Who is in the picture that Arn hangs on his bedroom wall at the beginning of the novel?
(a) The first lady of the United States.
(b) His mother during her opera heyday.
(c) The Prince of Cambodia's daughter.
(d) The young U.S. President's widow, Jackie Kennedy.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. Who tells Arn's aunt about Arn and Munny seeing the American movie?

3. Upon realizing that Arn is teasing him by putting a stone on his chest instead of the customary lump of sugar, Mek tells Arn that he has a treat for him. What is the treat?

4. The first person Arn sees in over a year who is not wearing a black uniform is the new leader who arrives at the camp. How does Arn describe his appearance?

5. 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?

Short Essay Questions

1. 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?

2. How does Arn fix the problem of the new music teacher's apathy and what effect does this solution have on the band's members?

3. 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?

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

5. 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?

6. 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?

7. 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?

8. After Arn is chosen by Khmer Rouge leaders to play music in their band, Arn sees there are positive results and negative results of his being chosen. What are they and what does this show about one's fate under the rule of the Khmer Rouge?

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

10. Though at first, the villagers think that the jeeps and trucks pouring into the village is a good sign and means that the war is over, what is the first thing that happens to make Arn realize that the opposite is true?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,625 words (approx. 6 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample