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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. In what activity are Isabel and the other boat passengers engaging when Ivan is attacked by a shark?

2. What is NOT listed among the items provided by the tourists who help Isabel and the other passengers?

3. When Josef's father disappears from the family's cabin in Josef's absence, where does he turn out to have gone?

4. To whom does Mahmoud give the deceased man's life jacket?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the reason given for the firemen on the ship engaging in bad behavior while the ship is docked in Cuba and what are they said to be doing?

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

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

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

5. 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?

6. For what reason does Dr. Aber, the father of Renata and Evelyne, tell the girls to disembark from the ship without bringing any of their belongings?

7. 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?

8. What occurs when Isabel and her family realize they have landed on the Bahamas?

9. 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?

10. What is Josef's mother's plan for procuring a sleeping potion to help calm her husband Aaron down?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the novel's message concerning the link between ignorance and hatred?

Essay Topic 2

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.

Essay Topic 3

Choose three major symbols within the narrative and discuss in an essay the connections between these three symbols and three major themes present within the novel.

(see the answer keys)

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