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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 caused the scars on the backs of Ryan's legs?

2. Which Virginia couple successfully challenged Virginia's ban on interracial marriage at the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1960s?

3. What was the name of the detention facility where Ryan was taken in Chapter 6?

4. What did Adrian produce as part of his art projects?

5. Who is the conductor who works with Ryan at the start of Chapter 5?

Short Essay Questions

1. How do Ryan and Adrian remember their mother Valerie's relationship with Barry?

2. How does Ryan's second practice session with Patrick Summers go in Chapter 7, after he has worked with the pronunciation coach?

3. What is the incident that leads to Ryan's time in the juvenile detention center when he is 12 years old?

4. In Chapter 7, what is Ryan worried is contributing to his difficulties with Italian pronunciation?

5. Who is the juvenile detention center that Ryan is placed in in Chapter 7 named after?

6. Why does Valerie, Ryan's mother, tell Bergner she passed up the opportunity to attend the Air Force Academy?

7. Why does Valerie still seem bitter about the way Cecil proposed to her?

8. In Chapter 1, why is Banquo's aria from Verdi's opera Macbeth a meaningful audition piece for Ryan?

9. What law that Dr. DeJarnette was instrumental in passing was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1960s?

10. When Ryan works with the conductor Patrick Summers in Chapter 5, how does their practice session go?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

After he leaves the DeJarnette Center, Ryan joins the Latin club, befriends a while classmate named Jared Poulter, and generally tries to integrate himself into the white mainstream of his school. Write an essay analyzing why he takes these actions and what he hopes to gain from his actions.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay analyzing the aspects of both Ryan's and his girlfriend Irene Fast's childhoods and backgrounds that are similar in important ways that allow them to understand and empathize with one another.

Essay Topic 3

Alan Fischer, the chairman for the vocal music department at the Virginia Governor's School for the Arts, where Ryan receives his first formal vocal training, says that Ryan's acceptance into the program was "an extreme case of serendipity" (137). Write an essay analyzing what Fischer meant by this statement and explain the significance of Ryan's acceptance to the program to his life and later career.

(see the answer keys)

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