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

Short Answer Questions

1. What event precipitated Spain's complete loss of power?

2. According to Paz, why did the Revolution become a compromise?

3. Why does poetry tend to eradicate history? (Chapter Seven).

4. During the Revolution, whom did the intelligentsia make the focal point of its activities?

5. What question did Edmundo O'Gorman try to answer?

Short Essay Questions

1. What role did Jose Vasconcelos play in modern education? From Paz's descriptions, what is his opinion of Vasconcelos?

2. What is Paz's definition of "community"? How is that definition knowingly idealistic?

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

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

5. Why could Mexico not have progressed as far as she has today if she were working within capitalism?

6. What role did Catholicism play in the lives of the conquering Spaniards? Was that role contradictory?

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. Despite Mexico's advancements, where does she still stand on the world spectrum? How can she change her placement?

9. How does Paz explain the suicides of the Aztec people? Is it a reasonable explanation?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Find the deaths that are mentioned in the book. According to the Mexican criterion for a worthy death - the death suits the life - how many of those people died a worthy death? How many of them died a death that did not suit their lives?

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

Spain accepted all forms of the Renaissance and then closed itself off to further influence. How did that affect the Conquest? How does that continue to affect Mexico's philosophical and religious development?

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