View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Which suburb does Makina need to visit next?
(a) The one with the prison.
(b) The one with the petroleum refinery.
(c) The one with the zoo.
(d) The one with the museum.

2. What distinguishes Makina’s travel from one city to another?
(a) She has to take so many varieties of transportation to get there.
(b) She does not leave an urban environment.
(c) She arrives surprisingly quickly.
(d) She only knows she has arrived because people tell her so.

3. What does Makina’s brother say typically initiated periods of activity for him and his fellow soldiers?
(a) A higher-up would decide it was time for a campaign.
(b) A bomb would be thrown into the compound.
(c) There was no regularity to the periods of activity.
(d) One of his homeys would be shot.

4. What effect does Makina’s writing have?
(a) It galvanizes the other migrants.
(b) It summons bystanders to get involved.
(c) It dissolved the cop’s anger.
(d) It makes the cop angrier.

5. How does Makina characterize new ways of saying things?
(a) As transformations of the old world.
(b) As prophesies of a new world.
(c) As degradation of pure languages.
(d) As new things themselves.

6. What traits make the people’s language in America similar to Makina herself?
(a) Malleability, permeability.
(b) Intensity, passion.
(c) Durability, obduracy.
(d) Formlessness, potential.

7. Why did Makina’s brother not return home?
(a) He was too ashamed.
(b) He owed too much money to dangerous men.
(c) He had forgotten the way.
(d) He was curious to stay.

8. What does the narrator say is brimming in the immigrants’ language?
(a) Grief.
(b) Nostalgia.
(c) Powerlessness.
(d) Patience.

9. What language is the Latin tongue, in Makina’s view?
(a) Incan.
(b) Spanish.
(c) Mayan.
(d) English.

10. What does Makina say she wants to do when the man tells her that the family who lived there moved?
(a) Hang herself from a lamp post.
(b) Kill someone.
(c) Go to Europe.
(d) Go home.

11. What did Makina’s brother eat until he recovered after discovering there was nothing at the land he had gone to see?
(a) Soup.
(b) Avocados.
(c) Bread.
(d) Refuse.

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

13. What did Makina’s brother’s first note home say?
(a) "I haven’t found the land yet, but I will."
(b) "I have found the land, but it is nothing."
(c) "I am here on the land, waiting for you."
(d) "Please send money, I am broke."

14. What does Makina’s brother’s third note say?
(a) "I’m going to send money soon."
(b) "Send money, I’m broke."
(c) "I have a job, now."
(d) "Stop asking if I’m okay."

15. Why is Makina surprised by the man who opens the door at the address the woman from the restaurant gave her?
(a) He is a dark-skinned black man.
(b) He is not her brother.
(c) He does not speak English.
(d) He speaks her language.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the first soldier Makina meets doing when she asks for her brother?

2. Where does Makina hear a voice she recognizes?

3. What did the person whose place Makina’s brother is taking ask him?

4. How does Makina’s brother indicate that he wants to leave to talk to her?

5. What does Makina’s brother say made him confident about taking this job?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 676 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample