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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 the police tell the people?

2. What does the girl think this predicament has to do with?

3. Where is "Sarah's Key" set?

4. Where does the girl's parents' fear come from?

5. When is "Sarah's Key" set?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe Julia Jaramond's relationship with her husband.

2. How does the narrator describe the site of Vel d'Hiv'?

3. Where are the girl and her parents sent to, before their final destination?

4. What restrictions have the Jews had to obey under the Vichy government?

5. What do the yellow stars signify?

6. What kind of writing does Julia do?

7. Describe the girl's escape with Rachel.

8. How does the narrator say the girl and her mother react differently to the conditions at Beaune-la-Rolande?

9. Describe the conditions at Beaune-la-Rolande.

10. What are conditions like at the location where the buses take the girl and her mother?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How are Julia's pregnancy and her search for Sarah related? Is the pregnancy--and Bertrand's opposition to it--an opportunity for her to look into Sarah's story? Is Sarah's story a counterweight to balance her discomfort about her marriage?

Essay Topic 2

Would you recommend "Sarah's Key"? For what purposes would you recommend "Sarah's Key", and what kinds of readers would you not recommend it? What book would you recommend that would cover the same material or provide the same emotional experience in a different way?

Essay Topic 3

The ending of "Sarah's Key" gets a bit chaotic, as a lot of family drama comes to a head, and Julia's marriage ends, and her mother-in-law dies after the big realization that the Tézac family was related to Sarah's story. Evaluate the proposition that this jumble of action and plot resolution is a flaw in the novel, and that the convolutions dispel the force of the realizations. Does this book end up being about Julia's marriage and in-law family drama, with Sarah's story being just dressing?

(see the answer keys)

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