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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. What mentality does Paz attribute to the Mexican?
(a) Master.
(b) Leader.
(c) Servant.
(d) Victim.

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

4. What do a pachuco's actions and lifestyle demonstrate?
(a) His will to remain different.
(b) His dissatisfaction with North American culture.
(c) His desire to return to Mexico.
(d) His anger at a culture that will not assimilate him.

5. Above all other definitions, who is the Chingada?
(a) The representation of virginity.
(b) A mythical mother.
(c) The representation of violated womanhood.
(d) A living mother.

Short Answer Questions

1. As the closure to Chapter Two, the reader sees what shadow spreading out over Mexico?

2. Why are woman considered inferior people?

3. What is the Spanish view of women in contrast to the Mexican?

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

5. What is the novelty of the pachuco clothing?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the origin of the pachuco? How does that characterization prepare the reader for the rest of the book?

2. What is left of the colonial world? Are those remnants the best or the worst parts that could be left behind?

3. How does North American culture view the pachuco? Does the pachuco accept or reject that culture's perception of him?

4. In Chapter Three, the following idea is presented: "There is nothing so joyous as a Mexican fiesta, but there is also nothing so sorrowful. Fiesta night is also a night of mourning" (Chapter 3, page 53). What does that mean?

5. Why does the Mexican love Form? Other than in personal relationships, how does that idea express itself?

6. How is the modern murderer different from a murderer of the past? How has modernity contributed to that difference?

7. What is the character of the Mexican's solitude? How does it differ from the solitude of the North American?

8. How did the Aztecs view sin? How does that idea explain the Conquest? What enormous change did Catholicism introduce?

9. Who represents the conflict that Mexicans have not been able to solve? What effect does that conflict have on their culture?

10. What is the Mexican view of death? When does death become saddest?

(see the answer keys)

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