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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 does the sicario describe as his experience in going to a prayer service at a Christian church?

2. Who does Cantu stay behind in New Mexico to visit on page 125?

3. Which city did Cantu's grandfather come from?

4. Who is Jose's wife?

5. What does Jose share with Cantu every morning?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the sicario tell the interviewers started to happen in his personal life after years of working for the cartel?

2. What does the sicario, or hit man for a cartel, tell Charles Bowden was an important symbolic part of disposing of the bodies of the people he killed?

3. Why is Lupe, Jose's wife, not able to visit the detention center where he is being held awaiting a final decision on his case?

4. What does Beto tell Cantu about his background and his aspirations for his career with Border Patrol?

5. What did Mexican president Felipe Calderon base his campaign on?

6. On page 135, what does Cantu say became the hallmark of Ciudad Juarez sometime around the mid-1990s?

7. Who asks Cantu to help Jose when it becomes clear he is having trouble getting back into the U.S.?

8. What does Hayward tell Cantu's new colleagues in Tucson, Beto and Manuel, about Cantu's skills?

9. What does the woman whose feet Cantu bandages tell him about himself pn page 154?

10. What Greek story does Cantu mention and compare to some of the tragedies he sees playing out in the desert through his job?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

When Morales and Cantu arrest two men from Oaxaca for crossing the border illegally, the migrants share their homemade delicacies brought across the border, including grasshoppers, jerky, and mezcal with Morales and Cantu. Write an essay analyzing the tensions and contradictions Cantu feels towards the work he is compelled to perform as a Border Patrol officer and his feelings of sympathy towards some of the people he meets crossing the border.

Essay Topic 2

Cantu describes the struggles of the migrants crossing the border in inhospitable conditions, the inhumane treatment of migrants at the hands of some Border Patrol agents, and the landscape itself in vivid language and specific imagery. Write an essay analyzing the linguistic style and tone Cantu adopts towards his subject matter, discussing how his choices affect the reader's understanding of his story.

Essay Topic 3

Soon after Cantu starts his field work with Border Patrol, he begins to get a sense that the work is not what he expected. He quickly becomes demoralized and disturbed both by what he sees and by the structural limitations of the job itself. Write an essay discussing how Cantu's earliest experiences performing field work with Border Patrol contradict his hopes and expectations about what the job would be like and what he may have been able to learn from it.

(see the answer keys)

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