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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. To which of the following does Moshe take Chona for treatment?

2. How many days after Malachi’s arrival does Chona begin to recover?

3. What nickname does Chona have among the local Jewish community?

4. How does the text gloss the term “schmeichlers”?

5. How does the novel gloss the term “chamalyah”?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Chona have standing among the local Jewish community?

2. Why does Malachi maintain Black Americans have an advantage?

3. To what does Chona ascribe her and Moshe’s commercial success?

4. What had attracted the Black population of Pottstown to Pottstown?

5. What event precipitates Bernice leaving school?

6. How does Malachi respond to the assertion that a mezuzah belongs on a door?

7. In the novel, what is the story of Moses and the burning coals?

8. What rumor surrounds Norman Skrupskelis?

9. Why, per Moshe, is marriage complicated for new Jewish immigrants to America?

10. Why does Paper not work as a maid?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Explicate the significance of the name of any one character in the text.

Essay Topic 2

Overall, what is the most important theme of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. What in the text indicates as much? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

The novel comments repeatedly on the South, despite taking place in what is clearly the North. How is the South figured in the novel? What effect on the reader does that figuration have? How is it produced?

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