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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. What do Mahmoud and his brother Waleed do when they see two boys robbing another boy of a loaf of bread?

2. In order to avail themselves of the smuggler's help, Mahmoud and his family must first make it to what city on the coast of Turkey?

3. In what year does Isabel's narrative from Havana, Cuba begin?

4. When a boy offers to show Mahmoud and his family somewhere they can sleep, how much money does he charge them for the information?

5. What are piropos?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Josef feel about invisibility?

2. What happens the first two times Isabel's father tries to journey to America from Cuba?

3. Of everyone in Mahmoud's family, who comes the closest to losing his or her life when the apartment is hit by a missile?

4. What U.S. policies change and make it harder for Cuban people to seek refuge in the United States?

5. What does Mahmoud buy for his little brother Waleed at a shop in the Turkish refugee camp and what does he hope to achieve with his purchase?

6. What is the clave?

7. What revelation does Lito make to Isabel about Miami, Florida, at one moment in the journey?

8. What qualities of Senor Castillo's lead to his role as the leader on the boat?

9. How is irony employed within the author's choice of the material that lines Isabel's boat?

10. List some of Isabel's and the other boat passengers' expectations of what life will be like in America.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss how the author goes about building the readers' compassion for the refugees featured in the narrative.

Essay Topic 2

Analyze the author's focus on the theme of cultural identity. What message is the author sending about cultural identity and how does the author get across this message to the reader?

Essay Topic 3

Sensory details are used frequently by the author in order to create vivid pictures of each major character's journey and progression through the narrative. Choose three scenes in which sensory details are heavily used and discuss how the sensory details used by the author set a particular mood for each of the three scenes.

(see the answer keys)

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