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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 do guides dress when traveling with walkers?

2. The men stumbling out of the mountains in the book's introduction suffered from a medical condition; what was it?

3. Urrea describes an apparition of a black head in the dirt as seen by an unnamed traveler; what did the black head do upon seeing the traveler?

4. What was the name of Don Moi's boss?

5. Who was Jesus AKA Mendez AKA Rooster Boy?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who is Ken Smith?

2. Who was Don Moi?

3. From what state did most of the Yuma 14 come?

4. How does the sign warning travelers in Sasabe describe the Coyotes?

5. What techniques do Border Patrol signcutters use to locate walkers?

6. Why do some guides feed their walkers diet pills?

7. Who is Mike F.?

8. According to Urrea, what was the most scandalous item provided in the survival kits that the Mexican government created for walkers?

9. To whom does the term "Coyotes" refer?

10. What is Desolation?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The Devil's Highway is populated with an array of pseudonyms. Many of the people described are introduced as "John Doe" (32) and similar aliases. In some cases, aliases are all that we are ever given. Use evidence from the text, including direct statements of intent within the afterword, to interpret the significance of Urrea's decision to shroud the book's subjects in layers of anonymity and pseudonymity.

Essay Topic 2

Though The Devil's Highway is a non-fiction book, in incorporates many poeticized and fictionalized passages. Choose one or more passages from the book incorporating a poetic or literary technique such as stanzas, dialogue, metaphor, personification, symbolism, or character development. Explain how the technique is used in the passage, both justifying your choice as an example of the technique specified and analyzing the effect the technique's usage has on the reader. Conclude by explaining how the use of this technique impacts the book's truthfulness.

Essay Topic 3

Urrea writes in the afterword, "The border can be seen either as a hideous scare that binds two warring cultures together.... Or it can be seen as an imaginary line that unites overlapping human tribes" (234). Write an essay comparing and contrasting these two visions of the border. Cite passages in the text that correspond to either vision, analyzing Urrea's rhetoric and choice of details to determine which vision is expressed.

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This section contains 636 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample