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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. Who is Kim in love with in Book Two, Chapter 9?

2. What does Sunja think when she first sees Hansu again in Book One, Chapter 6?

3. What does Pastor Yoo tell the sister in the dispute in Book One, Chapter 14?

4. What does Yoseb tell Isak not to do to avoid trouble in the ghetto in Book One, Chapter 12?

5. What does Hansu tell Yoseb about Yoseb’s parents in Book Two, Chapter 8?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the novel describe Ikaino in Book One, Chapter 12?

2. In Book One, Chapter 17, why is Yoseb so upset at Sunja for selling the watch?

3. Why is Sunja so determined to pay off Yoseb’s debt in Book One, Chapter 16?

4. What are Yoseb and Hansu's plans for the Baek family in Book Two, Chapter 8? How are they different?

5. What does Isak think about when he realizes he is sick with tuberculosis at the end of Book One, Chapter 3?

6. From Book One, Chapter 8, what happens in the Book of Hosea in the Bible and why?

7. How does Pastor Yoo resolve the siblings quarrel in Book One, Chapter 14 and why?

8. Why do the Chung brothers say that Japan will never conquer China in Book One, Chapter 2? Why do they support China?

9. What figurative language does Sunja use to think about the stories Koh Hansu tells her in Book One, Chapter 5? Why does she try to store everything he tells her?

10. What worries does Yangjin confide to Isak as they walk in Book One, Chapter 7?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In the beginning of Pachinko, Hoonie's parents raise him according to the ideal that, "a spoiled son did more harm to the family than a dead one" (6). Later, we see characters such as Sunja and Hansu thinking and speaking about how their parents treated them. We see Noa commit suicide based on his parentage. How does the way different parents raise their children affect the way these children represent their families and carry out their lives? How do they raise their children as a result? Use at least two characters to develop an argument. Finally, does what Hoonie's parents use for raising their son hold true for the rest of the novel?

Essay Topic 2

On Yangjin's deathbed, the following passage takes place:

"Go-saeng, Yangjin said out loud, "A woman's lot is to suffer."

"Yes, go-saeng," Kyunghee nodded, repeating the word for suffering.

All her life, Sunja had heard this sentiment from the other women, that they must suffer---suffer as a girl, suffer as a wife, suffer as a mother--die suffering. Go-saeng---the word made her sick. What else was there besides this. She had suffered to create a better life for Noa, and yet it was not enough. Should she have taught her son to suffer the humiliation that she'd drunk like water? In the end, he had refused to suffer the conditions of his birth. Did mother's fail by not telling their sons that suffering would come?" (420).

How in this passage and elsewhere is suffering different for women than it is from men? How are men allowed to live differently than women? And when Sunja thinks about teaching Noa to deal with suffering as she has, how is the way she has learned to handle the world different than the way he has learned? Analyze this passage, and then use two other examples in the text to support a claim.

Essay Topic 3

Isak tells Noa on his deathbed that "Men may be unfair, but the Lord is fair. You'll see. You will" (196). Does this idea that everything is fair in the end hold true for the novel? Choose two characters and explore their actions. Is what happens to them in the novel fair? Are their actions or what happens to them counterbalanced by anything else? What definition of "fairness" does the novel show?

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