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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 many families wished to stay at the mine?

2. What was the name of Esther's governess?

3. How many people were packed into the railroad car?

4. Approximately how many people were taken to the gypsum mines?

5. During the first night in the schoolroom, what time did the prisoners hear a knock at the window?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who took charge in the railroad car the Rudomins were packed into?

2. Why did Esther say that history was taught in Rubtsovsk with some curious omissions?

3. What could Esther see from the top of Castle Hill?

4. What did the prisoners learn at a meeting at the beginning of Chapter 6?

5. What did Esther pray when the moon came up the first night she spent at the gypsum mine?

6. What techniques did Raya learn for protecting herself in the Siberian winter?

7. What did Esther see at night when there was no storm brewing?

8. How did the Rudomins learn that Solomon had died? Another deportee from a labor camp, a former lawyer, came to see the Rudomins. He told them that Solomon had died from pneumonia.

9. What jobs were the Poles assigned?

10. How did Esther describe her Great-grandmother Reisa?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Esther worked hard to make a sweater for Marya Nikolayevna even under very trying conditions and with very little to work with. Discuss work ethic and how Esther demonstrated that she had a strong work ethic.

Essay Topic 2

Samuel was ordered to work on the front lines. Discuss the reactions of the Rudomin family to the news that Samuel had to work on the front lines.

Essay Topic 3

Esther developed a first impression of Makrinin and Popravka that proved to be true over time. Compare and contrast Makrinin and Popravka.

(see the answer keys)

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