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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the novelty of the pachuco clothing?
(a) Its disregard for current fashion.
(b) Its impracticality.
(c) Its colors.
(d) Its exaggeration.

2. How does a man become "like the angels" (Chapter Three, page 61)?
(a) By valuing life to its final moment.
(b) By entrusting everything to God.
(c) By opening fully to death, as well as to life.
(d) By running from death to an embracement of life.

3. How do Mexicans avoid the dangers of romantic relationships, according to Paz?
(a) By stifling their feelings.
(b) By not truly loving.
(c) By denying the importance of the other.
(d) By exaggerating their feelings.

4. What analogy does Paz use to explain Mexico's history?
(a) A child without a family.
(b) A child without a future.
(c) A man searching for his parents.
(d) A man searching for his wife.

5. As Paz begins Chapter Two, he says that the Mexican is always afraid to glance at his neighbor. What reason does he give for that?
(a) His neighbor reveals the disillusioned character of Mexico.
(b) The glance could reveal his isolation.
(c) The glance could spark rage.
(d) His neighbor is a pathetic version of himself.

6. In contrast to the North American, what is one of the most noticeable traits about the Mexican character?
(a) His disinterest in emotional attachments.
(b) His obsession with love.
(c) His aversion to horror.
(d) His acceptance of horror.

7. What does Paz deem to be the first and most serious change that a man endures when he becomes a worker?
(a) He loses communion with his fellow man.
(b) He loses his individuality.
(c) He loses his sense of the Divine.
(d) He stops earning what he is worth.

8. How are the worlds of terrorism and mass production similar to each other? (Chapter Four).
(a) Their primary catalyst is guilt.
(b) They focus on the individuality of man.
(c) They are worlds of things.
(d) However subtle, they use persecution.

9. What connotation does the verb, chingar, carry?
(a) Failure.
(b) Disaster.
(c) Mythical power.
(d) Violation.

10. Other than solitude, what does the Mexican often feel in relation to other peoples?
(a) Intellectualism.
(b) Inferiority.
(c) Weakness.
(d) Complete isolation.

11. According to Paz, how does death end when a civilization denies it?
(a) By living fully.
(b) By evading death.
(c) Through the denial of life.
(d) It does not end.

12. In their relation to their world, to whom does Paz compare Mexicans?
(a) Orientals.
(b) Peruvians.
(c) Germans.
(d) Nigerians.

13. To follow Paz's previous argument, what is the result when one Mexican confides in another?
(a) Sadness.
(b) Dishonor.
(c) Affection.
(d) Alienation.

14. In Paz's opinion, when is a person most likely to see himself as precious and unique?
(a) In childhood.
(b) At the end of his life.
(c) When he is in love.
(d) During adolescence.

15. As explained in Chapter One, who are the pachucos?
(a) Young men who leave Mexico for the United States hoping for a better life.
(b) Old men who keep the memory of Mexico alive in their grandchildren who were born in the United States.
(c) Rebellious youths who are not assimilated into North American culture.
(d) Old men who no longer have a connection to their native land.

Short Answer Questions

1. In Paz's thought, what does a study of the great myths reveal?

2. How does solitude assume a purifying, almost purgative, quality for the Mexican?

3. What is the advantage of the North American view of women in relation to the Spanish view?

4. Why did the sense of Mexicanism "float" in the air of Los Angeles?

5. Through dissimulation, what does a Mexican attempt to do?

(see the answer keys)

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