View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What role does the Mexican man play in society?
(a) He defends everything that he has.
(b) He wants to raise Mexico to a place of prominence in the world.
(c) He seeks to expand his control in the world.
(d) He protects everything entrusted to him.

2. What does the pachuco represent in Paz's writing?
(a) One step along the path that a Mexican can take.
(b) One extreme at which the Mexican can arrive.
(c) The modern-day religious saint.
(d) The typical Mexican living in North American culture.

3. What is the French sociologists' interpretation of the fiesta?
(a) The people's disregard for death increases their sense of life.
(b) The people's squandering of money appeases the gods.
(c) The people's misunderstanding of life increases their desire for death.
(d) The people's disregard for obligations enhances their sense of time.

4. What does the Mexican value in art, religion, and politics?
(a) Form.
(b) Originality.
(c) Purity.
(d) Equality.

5. When does the pachuco become his true self?
(a) When he is in Mexico.
(b) When he is surrounded by fellow Mexicans.
(c) When his life explodes.
(d) When he is alone.

6. When Paz first arrived in the United States, what surprised him most about the people?
(a) Their confidence and self-assurance.
(b) Their lack of openness.
(c) Their confidence in the future of the nation.
(d) Their honesty and sense of community.

7. Paz discusses the result of persecution on the pachuco. What is that result?
(a) It makes him stronger.
(b) It strengthens his anger.
(c) It breaks his solitude.
(d) It makes him distrustful.

8. Why do Mexicans tell lies (Chapter Two)?
(a) To hide themselves.
(b) Merely for the enjoyment of it.
(c) To protect the other person.
(d) To create confusion.

9. What is the most valued trait in both the military and political realms?
(a) Stoicism.
(b) Kindness.
(c) Valor.
(d) Courage.

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

11. Why did Catholicism drastically change the Aztec view of life?
(a) It placed man's salvation outside himself.
(b) It placed a merciful God in charge.
(c) It saw life linearly rather than cyclically.
(d) It emphasized man's humanity and personhood.

12. How does solitude assume a purifying, almost purgative, quality for the Mexican?
(a) It is proof of future communion with others.
(b) It concentrates the Mexican's attention on the Divine rather than on the human.
(c) It wipes away his anger toward others.
(d) It serves to mitigate his guilt (a Catholicism concept).

13. How does the philosophy of progress treat death?
(a) It minimizes death.
(b) It pretends to make death disappear.
(c) It treats death as one more step in life.
(d) It disregards death entirely.

14. As Paz uderstands it, what is the Mexican's relation to death?
(a) Intimate but empty.
(b) Sacrificial.
(c) Intimate and heartbreaking.
(d) Emotionally remote.

15. Why is death a part of the fiesta (Chapter Three)?
(a) Because people often get drunk and violent.
(b) Because Mexico celebrates all aspects of life, even the end.
(c) Because exuberant death is honorable.
(d) Because the Mexican seeks to escape from himself.

Short Answer Questions

1. How did Paz consider his philosophical questions?

2. Which of the following powers does the saying "I am your father" hold? (Chapter Four, page 80).

3. On which group of people were Paz's thoughts focused?

4. How does Paz differentiate between views of the body in Mexico and North America?

5. Chapter Three begins with the great effect that fiestas and public celebrations have. What is this effect?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 723 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample