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. What did Moctezuma think as the Spaniards approached?

2. How did liberalism and democracy function in South American countries?

3. When did Spain begin to lose her hold on Mexico?

4. What did the Revolution force the Mexican people to do?

5. What did Manuel Gomez-Morin accomplish for the Revolution?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Paz define "Mexicanism"? How does it mesh with the individual whom he had described earlier?

2. Throughout his career, what did Jorge Cuesta argue? What are the benefits and downfalls of his argument?

3. Who was Sor Juana? Why was she an unusual person both in South America and in old Spain?

4. Why did the new Constitution mandate that education be secular? How might that have made the Mexicans feel?

5. Why was the Aztec nation able to unify so many diverse tribes? How were they quite skilled with that type of action?

6. What role did religion play in ancient South American cultures? Did Catholicism change that role?

7. Pulling from the ideas of Jose Gaos, Paz, speaks of the physical duality in Mexico. What does that mean? What significance does that idea have?

8. When did Independence begin in Mexico? How was it similar to or different from the Conquest?

9. How does unemployment on the farms affect the cities? How does it slow all of Mexico's development?

10. What did Article 3 of the new Constitution mandate? What troubles did that Article cause?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What are the varieties of chingar that the author explains? Does that help your comprehension of the word? Does it enrich your understanding of Mexican culture?

Essay Topic 2

When does a Mexican come into conflict with his fellow man, especially another Mexican? What are the facets of the clash? How is it resolved?

Essay Topic 3

In Paz's arguments, how important is the Mexican sense of place? What affects it? What is its most important aspect? Explain the sense of place in the greater context of the Mexican mindset that Paz presents throughout the book.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,749 words (approx. 6 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample