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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 does Captain Schroeder say had happened when he sought to meet with President Bru?

2. When Isabel thinks of her family's journey as a song, she thinks that what events would constitute the first verse?

3. Who sews Ruthie's stuffed bunny back together before she can see it headless?

4. What words does Josef's father scream throughout his rescue from the ocean?

5. Who pulls Isabel hurriedly into the boat in order to save her from being attacked by the shark who has bitten Ivan?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. How do Mahmoud and his family reach the Serbian border on their journey fleeing Syria?

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

4. 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?

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

6. How does Mahmoud save his infant sister Hana from drowning after the family's dinghy bursts upon the rocks?

7. On the second day of Isabel's journey, it is said that it seems to Isabel and Ivan that everyone has a job but the two of them. What jobs are being handled by the others?

8. When Isabel realizes that each part of the journey has been like the verse of a song, what results does she come up with when thinking of the various verses the song would include?

9. What does Isabel mean when she thinks that "Fidel Castro has Ivan's blood all over him" (224)?

10. What details does Isabel remember about her grandmother Lita's death?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss how and why the author instills three different humanist messages into the narrative of Alan Gratz's Refugee.

Essay Topic 2

William Faulkner once famously claimed that the most important literature deals with the subject of the human heart in conflict with itself. Explain how the theme of The Individual versus Society is demonstrated within Alan Gratz's Refugee.

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.

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