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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. How does the process of gathering information change Artie’s relationship with his father?

2. How does Artie’s father characterize Anja’s relationship with Artie?

3. What is Vladek and Anja’s reaction to Vladek being drafted?

4. What period is covered by Chapter 1?

5. When did Vladek first serve in the army?

Short Essay Questions

1. How was Vladek kept out of the Polish army the first time, and why did he end up going into the army the next year?

2. How does Artie characterize his father’s relationship with Mala, his wife?

3. What tasks are Vladek and the other prisoners given after the battle?

4. What animals are people depicted as, in Maus?

5. What political news do Vladek and Anja hear on their way to Czechoslovakia?

6. How does Artie’s father characterize himself in the time before he met Anja?

7. What tasks are Vladek and his companions given at the work assignment?

8. In addition to Vladek being released from the work camp during Parshas Truma, what events take place at Parshas Truma?

9. How is it that Vladek comes to know English?

10. What doubts does Vladek have about Anja before he marries her?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How would Maus be different if it were written from a female perspective? What if it were a daughter trying to get her mother’s story? What parts of the book might remain the same? What parts of the book would be completely different?

Essay Topic 2

Vladek and Mala are constantly bickering, unlike Vladek and Anja, in the historical narrative. How does the present-day relationship between Vladek and Mala mirror or revise the larger themes in the historical narrative of Maus?

Essay Topic 3

What character traits allow Vladek and Anja to survive the Holocaust? What character traits led others to their deaths? Was there a formula for surviving the Holocaust, or was it merely luck, who survived and who did not?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 854 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample