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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Which statue does Makina need to look for next?
(a) An old man thinking.
(b) A bear dancing.
(c) A man in a frock coat.
(d) A general on a horse.

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

3. What does Makina’s brother say when Makina asks about the land?
(a) He says that when he got there, the construction was just starting.
(b) He asks if she has gone to see it, as if to say: you know it is worthless.
(c) He tells her a long and complicated lie about how he lost it.
(d) He tells her that he never got there, because he was robbed on the way.

4. What would happen if Makina’s brother died during the time at war?
(a) They would will the land to his family.
(b) They would bring his sister to America and give her citizenship.
(c) They would send money to his family.
(d) His family would not get anything.

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

6. What does the narrator say had happened to whatever had been in this place previously?
(a) It was burned to a cinder.
(b) It was pulled up by its roots.
(c) It was systematically destroyed.
(d) It dried out till it was ash.

7. What did the person whose place Makina’s brother is taking ask him?
(a) How much money he needed.
(b) Why he would agree to such a thing.
(c) Whether he was scared.
(d) What his hometown was like.

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

9. 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) Bread.
(c) Refuse.
(d) Avocados.

10. What does the cop tell Makina to do?
(a) Surrender her possessions.
(b) Run.
(c) Change her clothes.
(d) Ask permission for anything she wants.

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

12. Makina says that the language she hears in the U.S. contains both ancient memory and what other trait?
(a) The fear of the culture that is already replacing that ancient world.
(b) The wonderment of a new people.
(c) The losses of the present generation.
(d) The meanings of a generation yet to be born.

13. 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.

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

15. How does Makina characterize the places she arrives at, and keeps going to?
(a) Empty pits.
(b) Plastic crowds.
(c) Bleak tundras.
(d) Teeming cities.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Makina characterize the shift in the people’s language in America?

2. What did Makina’s brother’s first note home say?

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

4. What does Makina’s brother’s second note say?

5. What does Makina do when she realizes she has made a mistake in recognizing her brother?

(see the answer keys)

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