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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. When Min-ho calls Hyeonseo to ask for more money, for what does Hyeonseo assume the last round of money had been used?

2. What type of music does Hyeonseo set as the incoming ring tone solely for when her mother and brother call her?

3. What does Hyeonseo forget to ask when she accepts her first job after leaving the men's salon?

4. When Hyeonseo asks the North Korean waitress where her plastic surgery had performed, what is the waitress's reply?

5. What does the word omma mean in Korean?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Hyeonseo compare and contrast the two countries of North Korea and China through description of each country's restaurants?

2. How is the theme of deception as a means of survival portrayed within Hyeonseo's escape from her job at the men's salon?

3. To whom does Hyeonseo's new identification card, the one stating that her name is Park Sun-ja, belong?

4. What plan does Hyeonseo invent in order to reach South Korea?

5. What emotion does Hyeonseo say she feels after her mother tells her over the phone that she should not return to North Korea?

6. What is symbolized by Hyeonseo's "fashionable new shoes" (101) that she wears on her journey into China?

7. What does Hyeonseo describe as "the cloud" (160) in her sky once she gets settled in her new job in Xita, gets her driving license, lives in her own apartment, and feels more confident in general?

8. What reasons does Hyeonseo provide for her tendency to forget she is North Korean once she has been in Shanghai for a full year?

9. When Hyeonseo speaks to her mother on the phone for the first time in years, what is Hyeonseo's reaction?

10. What does Hyeonseo long for just before she again meets her previous acquaintance Ok-hee?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Oftentimes in Western culture, volunteerism is looked at in terms of only helping those in need, but the memoir seems to put forth the proposition that service to others can also be a means to the provider's own personal happiness. Find examples within the memoir that would prove this conclusion regarding the author's message about service to others and discuss the message's overall effect on the reader.

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the author's decision to include a variety of photographs within the text. What purpose did she have when choosing and including these images? Back up your strong, specific claim about the author's use of photographs with concrete details from the images she includes in the book.

Essay Topic 3

The memoir does not shy away from including graphic and disturbing details when describing the horrors inflicted on the North Korean people by the ruling regime, such as the scene in which Hyeonseo witnesses a public hanging. Write a persuasive essay in which you argue for or against the use of this book in schools as a means to illuminate the ongoing human rights violations happening in North Korea.

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