View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does the narrator explain the fact that Bamber did not know anything about Vel d'Hiv'?

2. How did the police react when the mother objected to going?

3. What promise does the girl make to her brother?

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

5. What does the girl do when her father tells her what is happening?

Short Essay Questions

1. What happens when the girl and her parents arrive at Beaune-la-Rolande?

2. Describe the girl's escape with Rachel.

3. What lead does Julia get for gathering more information about Vel d'Hiv' during her trip there?

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

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

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

7. What is the larger context for the story, and how does the story clue us in to that larger context?

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

9. Where do the girl and Rachel go after Beaune-la-Rolande?

10. How does the narrator characterize Julia and Zoe?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the significance of Bertrand's mid-life crisis? Is it a convenient mechanism for removing him from Julia's live, to make room for William Rainsferd, or is it a metaphor for the inability to arrive at a mature acceptance of life's painful complexities?

Essay Topic 2

In what way is "Sarah's Key" an allegorical novel? What does Julia's baby symbolize? What other symbols give "Sarah's Key" a deeper meaning than the literal? How does the novel teach a moral, or resolve a symbolic problem?

Essay Topic 3

What is missing from this book? What should have been covered or presented that was not? What is the effect of this absence? Describe an element that ought to have been covered, and explain why it would have made the book stronger.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 789 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample