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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. In what location does Josef's mother spend all her time on the ship since leaving Cuba?
(a) In her cabin.
(b) In the dance hall.
(c) On the sundeck.
(d) In the cafeteria.

2. When Isabel searches for Ivan's Industriales hat, where does she find it?
(a) Tangled up in a sweatshirt.
(b) Floating in the water next to the boat.
(c) In Senora Castillo's hand.
(d) Under a bench on the boat.

3. How many refugees are expected to board the inflatable rubber dinghy used by the smugglers hired by Mahmoud's father?
(a) 60.
(b) 90.
(c) 30.
(d) 12.

4. When Josef's father is in the throes of a mental breakdown, he tells Josef that each night at the concentration camp, the prisoners were forced to watch one prisoner do what?
(a) Drown.
(b) Burn.
(c) Commit suicide by gunshot.
(d) Be buried alive.

5. How many euros does the taxi driver transporting Mahmoud and his family demand at gunpoint?
(a) 300.
(b) 100.
(c) 500.
(d) 900.

Short Answer Questions

1. To what location does a taxi driver offer to drive Mahmoud and his family if they give him 24,000 Syrian pounds?

2. Mahmoud's family makes the decision not to wait in Athens to acquire what items?

3. What major revelation does Isabel's mother make while the boat's passengers are waiting to see the lights of Miami?

4. Where does the Greek Coast Guard take Mahmoud and the other refugees at dawn once the boat is full of people?

5. Why is Belgrade, Serbia an unsafe place for Mahmoud and his family?

Short Essay Questions

1. Though the narrator states that a few of the refugees Mahmoud sees when boarding the dinghy have backpacks or plastic bags, how are most of the refugees carrying their belongings?

2. Whenever Mahmoud or his father wonder where Mahmoud's mother is, where do they inevitably find her and what is she doing?

3. What happens to Mahmoud's family on the way from Belgrade to the Hungarian border?

4. What about Waleed's reaction to being held at gunpoint worries Mahmoud about his brother even more than before?

5. What plans for his life in Florida does Señor Castillo reveal to the remaining passengers in the boat after Ivan's death?

6. What shocking detail does Mahmoud's father reveal to his family once they have been thrown into the water by their dinghy's destruction on the rocks?

7. Why does Isabel not want to look at the face of her dead best friend Ivan?

8. What change occurs in Josef's mother's personality once the MS St. Louis leaves Cuba?

9. For what reasons does Lito take on the role of leading Ivan's funeral ceremony?

10. What reaction do the other passengers of the MS St. Louis have to Renata and Evelyne being allowed to leave the ship to join their father?

(see the answer keys)

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