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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. To which of the following does Leigh compare her mother to Waipo and Waigong?

2. As which of the following colors does Leigh interpret Waipo’s voice?

3. Which of the following artists is identified as a favorite of Brian’s?

4. Which of the following does Leigh note available for sale along the path to what had been Dorothy’s favorite Taoist temple?

5. Which of the following durations does Leigh report for her flight to Taipei?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Leigh imagine Axel composing in response to the park she visits with Waipo on her first full day in Taipei?

2. What reasons does Leigh give for sleeping on the downstairs sofa?

3. What small talk does Brian relate to Leigh when they arrive at her grandparents’ home?

4. How does Leigh describe the stain left behind after the initial cleanup from Dorothy’s suicide?

5. What present does Axel give Leigh for her fourteenth birthday?

6. What reasons does Leigh note for thinking her bicycle and Axel’s romantic?

7. What are bwabwei in the novel?

8. How does Leigh contrast Axel’s appearance at the funeral with his usual appearance?

9. What is contained in the box the bird Dorothy became left for Leigh?

10. What experience bringing fantuan to school does Leigh relate?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

It is not until Chapter 8 that the name of Leigh’s mother is revealed. What purpose is served by the delay in naming her? How is it served?

Essay Topic 2

Leigh notes that “Some terrible requirement of being a teenager is being absolutely awful when your parents are being lovely” (299). Is her assertion correct? What in the novel and in experience suggests that it is or is not, and how does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

Leigh repeatedly calls attention to cracks in reality that appear only in brief flashes. Explicate the imagery of those cracks.

(see the answer keys)

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