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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 is Arn's first reaction when a girl sitting next to him at dinner suddenly dies?
(a) He screams for help and is punished for his cries.
(b) He runs away into the jungle to be by himself for a while.
(c) He takes her bowl of rice and keeps on eating.
(d) He pushes her to floor to save the other children from having to look at her.

2. From where does Chantou send Arn a letter?
(a) From her adoptive parents' home in America.
(b) From a mountain camp.
(c) From an opera house in Thailand.
(d) From their home village.

3. How does Arn cope with his feelings when the Khmer Rouge kitchen girl sexually molests him?
(a) He lashes out and hits the kitchen girl.
(b) He vows never to enter the kitchen again.
(c) He disassociates by going somewhere else in his mind.
(d) He cries.

4. When Arn is told by a Khmer Rouge soldier that he has a new job in addition to his job as a musician in the band, what does that new job turn out to be?
(a) He has to push the dead and dying into the mass grave in the mango grove.
(b) He has to cook for all of the children in the camp.
(c) He has to clean the area where the whole camp relieves themselves.
(d) He has to take away the material belongings from the captives' tents and give them to the soldiers.

5. What product does Arn skip school to sell, much to the chagrin of his older sister?
(a) Cigarettes.
(b) Bowls of rice.
(c) Ice cream.
(d) Shoes.

Short Answer Questions

1. What happens to the old man who is Arn's first music teacher?

2. Which of the following is NOT a topic of the Khmer Rouge songs the children are taught to play with their musical instruments?

3. When some new children arrive at the camp and one of them refuses to cut her hair, how is she punished?

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

5. What is the stringed instrument called that Arn learns to play in the band?

Short Essay Questions

1. 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?

2. 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?

3. Who is the emaciated girl with the missing teeth and loose skin who arrives at Arn's camp and what does he learn from her?

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

5. 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?

6. What happens to the pregnant woman and her husband who are walking next to Arn within the mass exodus of all cities? What lesson does Arn learn from seeing what happens?

7. 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?

8. 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?

9. How does Arn describe his village at the opening of the novel before the Khmer Rouge arrive?

10. 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?

(see the answer keys)

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