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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Makina hear as soon as she leaves the army base?
(a) "Run!"
(b) "You’re under arrest!"
(c) "Assume the position!"
(d) "Don’t leave me!"

2. Why did Makina go into the ATM booth?
(a) To hide from some cops.
(b) To get money.
(c) To change her clothes.
(d) For shelter from the cold.

3. What does Makina not see in the city to tell her that it is a city?
(a) Residential neighborhoods.
(b) Business districts.
(c) Central plazas.
(d) Shopping malls.

4. What does Makina’s brother say made him confident about taking this job?
(a) Dying in a foreign land wasn’t any worse than starving or being beaten in this one.
(b) It would hide the shame of having been duped about the land.
(c) The amount of money would be life-changing if he got it.
(d) The military was the most powerful in the world, and it would bring him back safe.

5. Why did Makina’s brother not answer this person's question?
(a) He refused to give the person an advantage by answering.
(b) He refused to condescend to answer.
(c) He did not have enough of the language.
(d) He felt so much pity he was angry.

6. What does Makina say people are doing when they combine languages?
(a) Re-domesticating human experience.
(b) Making the world happen anew.
(c) Returning to their roots.
(d) Marrying cultures.

7. What does the light look like in the sky when Makina arrives at the address?
(a) Pink flowers.
(b) Drying blood.
(c) Gray with snow.
(d) Yellow storm clouds.

8. What does Makina write on after a cop tells her to do something?
(a) Pages torn out of a poetry book.
(b) The arrest warrant the cop gave her.
(c) A scrap she caught in the wind.
(d) The note she meant to take to her brother.

9. What kind of language do Mexicans speak on the other side?
(a) A futuristic tongue.
(b) A bastardized tongue.
(c) An intermediary tongue.
(d) A purer tongue.

10. What is the advantage of a polyglot language, in Makina’s eyes?
(a) It tells you new things.
(b) It belongs to the people, not the academics.
(c) It lives closer to the heart.
(d) It includes more people.

11. How does the narrator describe Makina and her brother’s feelings when they walk out of the office?
(a) Joy.
(b) Disbelief.
(c) Disappointment.
(d) Relief.

12. What is the first soldier Makina meets doing when she asks for her brother?
(a) Reviewing a report.
(b) Filing his nails.
(c) Talking on the phone.
(d) Reading.

13. How does Makina characterize the shift in the people’s language in America?
(a) Self-defensive.
(b) Defiant.
(c) Assertive.
(d) Nurturing.

14. What is Makina’s brother told he will be doing, by taking this job?
(a) Saving a family.
(b) Assuring his immortality.
(c) Saving his country.
(d) Earning his keep.

15. What did Makina’s brother expect to get in return for taking this person’s place in the army?
(a) A plot of land.
(b) American citizenship.
(c) A large sum of money.
(d) A new car.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the woman tell Makina about her brother’s condition when he showed up?

2. Who does Makina think when her acquaintance recognizes her?

3. What distinguishes Makina’s travel from one city to another?

4. Which statue does Makina need to look for next?

5. What does the narrator say had happened to whatever had been in this place previously?

(see the answer keys)

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