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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What place does Ashima recall while in labor?
(a) The apartment she shares with her husband.
(b) No place, she's totally involved in her present situation.
(c) Her childhood home in India.
(d) The lake she once visited as a child.

2. What do Gogol's parents think of his wanting to change his name?
(a) They see it as an insult to his heritage and his family.
(b) They think it might improve his chances for a good job.
(c) They can't imagine why he'd want to do such a thing.
(d) They think it's too complicated and he's too old.

3. On the plane, why is Gogol happy to sit apart from his parents?
(a) He isn't happy, he's secretly afraid.
(b) He's glad because Sonia irritates him with her questions.
(c) Because he enjoys being on his own.
(d) Because he thinks no one will know they are related to him.

4. Why does Gogol tell the judge he's changing his name?
(a) People can't pronounce his name.
(b) He has always hated his name.
(c) He wants a more normal name.
(d) He doesn't like the writer he was named after.

5. What does Ashima try to make for a midnight snack?
(a) A concoction sold for pennies in Calcutta
(b) Rice Krispies bars
(c) Ice cream
(d) Pickles, because she's pregnant

6. When does the idea to change his name first occur to Gogol?
(a) When Sonia tells him people laugh behind his back.
(b) When school officials can't pronounce his given name.
(c) When reading an issue of Readers Digest.
(d) When relatives in India tell him it's not an Indian name.

7. What did Ashima do upon first meeting Ashoke when he visited her family home in India?
(a) She asked him about his travels, especially about America.
(b) She impulsively stepped into the strange American shoes at the door.
(c) She said she didn't want to meet anyone from America.
(d) She changed into her most beautiful sari before meeting him.

8. What kind of home does Gogol live in as an infant?
(a) A sunny, comfortable home shared by three immigrant families.
(b) An apartment in the slums, surrounded by noisy neighbors.
(c) A fully furnished apartment near Harvard and MIT.
(d) A two-story Georgian home the Ganguli family purchased.

9. What terrifies Ashima about having a child?
(a) The difficulty of getting her figure back afterwards.
(b) Raising it in a place so far from home.
(c) The pain of childbirth.
(d) Caring for a child with an absent husband.

10. What do the Gangulis do with their home while they are in India?
(a) Rent it to an unmarried couple, students at the university.
(b) Turn off the utilities and lock the doors.
(c) The sell it, figuring to buy another, nicer home when they return.
(d) Pay a company to check on it every so often.

11. What happens to Ashoke and Ashima within a decade of moving to America?
(a) They lose touch with their families in India.
(b) They seldom know what's going on with their families in India.
(c) They both become orphans.
(d) They become true Americans.

12. What does the Ganguli family do in the beginning of their life in their new home, in the evenings?
(a) They work on their English language skills.
(b) They sit outside and enjoy the luxury of a real yard.
(c) They go for drives and explore their new environs bit by bit.
(d) They watch American programs on their television.

13. As a young boy, how does Gogol feel about his name?
(a) He doesn't mind his name.
(b) He doesn't like it because he believes it marks him as different.
(c) He hates being Gogol Ganjuli.
(d) He wishes it was more American.

14. Where does Gogol first begin to introduce himself to people as Nikhil?
(a) As soon as he gets home he introduces his new self to his family.
(b) At the bank where he gets a school loan.
(c) At the park where a little boy asks his name.
(d) His first day of school in New Haven.

15. How does Ashima react to Gogol's time in pre-school?
(a) She is concerned that he will forget his Indian heritage.
(b) She finds herself at long last with time for herself.
(c) She wishes she could learn alongside him.
(d) She is despondent, unused to being alone all over again.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why is Ashima embarrassed to wear a hospital gown?

2. Why does Gogol's father take him to his first day of kindergarten?

3. What was Ashima's initial reaction to her first home in America?

4. What does Gogol's father give him on his fourteenth birthday?

5. How does the breakup between Gogol/Nakhil and Ruth happen?

(see the answer keys)

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