View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Geraldo die?

2. Why does Esperanza believe Mamacita won’t come down from her apartment?

3. What does she tell the school about her blue marks on her body?

4. What does Elenita tell Esperanza?

5. What or whom does Esperanza believe understands her?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Esperanza believe Mamacita is sad?

2. Esperanza has her fortune told, and Elenita tells her that she sees a “home in the heart”. What could this mean for Esperanza’s future?

3. Why does Esperanza say she’ll allow “bums in the attic”?

4. Esperanza wants a nice house and wants to live on a hill, but she believes that she’ll be different than the others who do so. How does she believe that she will be different?

5. Why does Esperanza feel a special kinship with the trees outside her window?

6. How does the phrase “no speak English” take on two meanings at the end of this vignette?

7. What is Sally’s relationship like with her parents?

8. Why does her Aunt Lupe tell her that writing will keep her free?

9. Why isn’t Rafaela allowed to leave her apartment?

10. Why did Marin stay with him in the emergency room?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What motifs reoccur in multiple vignettes? What do they represent? How are they used?

Essay Topic 2

Esperanza feels different than the other girls in the story. From the reader’s perspective, is she different? If so, how?

Essay Topic 3

Esperanza is named after her great-grandmother. What happens to Esperanza’s great-grandmother? Why doesn’t Esperanza want to be named after her?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 684 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample