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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 experience does Art Spiegelman’s father contrast with Art’s experience of his friends skating away when his skate broke?

2. When did Vladek first serve in the army?

3. What starts to happen in the town where Vladek and Anja live after they've had their son?

4. What reason does Artie's father give for what he is doing in Chapter 2?

5. What does Vladek say was his reaction to someone getting arrested because of the work Anja did for her friend during the war time?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe Vladek’s experience during battle.

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

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

4. What explains Vladek’s decision to marry Anja and not Lucia Greenberg?

5. 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?

6. What happens to Vladek and Anja in 1939?

7. What consequences do Anja’s political activities have?

8. What is life like at the sanitarium for Vladek and Anja?

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

10. What problems does Artie's father have with his eyes?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Evaluate your own reading of Maus—did you resist it, or were you compelled by the story? What does your reading tell you about yourself and your interests? Use specific examples from the book to describe yourself as a reader.

Essay Topic 2

Identify the most important plot points in Maus. What is at stake in each of these moments? What possibilities do these moments present, and how are those possibilities channeled into specific actions or events? How does the plot chart its course among other alternative or possible plots?

Essay Topic 3

In what ways is Maus relevant to contemporary readers? What contemporary issues are in play in the book, and how would the book contribute to contemporary discussion? Cite specific discussions from contemporary sources, and cite specific instances from the book that describe its contemporary relevance.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 875 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample