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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. The narrator describes his "usual postcoital position" as "rolled up into a ball like" what, in Chapter 17 (202)?

2. About how many people were at the meeting of the Dum Dum Donut Intellectuals that the narrator describes in Chapter 19?

3. What word from Chapter 15 means cheerful and full of energy?

4. Where is Kinshasa located?

5. What is referred to by the narrator as "a presigious oceanfront private 'learning fulcrum'" in Chapter 12 (170)?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the narrator define sister cities in "City Lites: An Interlude"?

2. Who is Jon McJones and where does the narrator encounter him?

3. How is the narrator's satsuma tree employed as a symbol in the novel?

4. What is burned at the ending of Career Day at Chaff Middle School? Why?

5. Why does the narrator slip out of the meeting in Chapter 19?

6. How did the narrator's father attempt to demonstrate racism to him backfire in Chapter 13?

7. What is "Whitey Week" and how is it defined in Chapter 20?

8. Who is Charisma Molina and what is her profession?

9. Why have the three cities that Dickens matched with refused to be sister cities?

10. What is Wheaton Academy and what role does it play in the plot of The Sellout?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Describe and analyze the character of Charisma Molina in the novel. How does Charisma know the narrator? What is her profession? How is Charisma involved in the central plot of the novel?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the genre of satire and how it applies to The Sellout. What aspects of the novel's plot are satirical? In what ways? How does irony play a role in the narrative?

Essay Topic 3

What charges have brought the narrator to the U.S. Supreme Court? How are the Justices of the Court described? How doe the Judges perceive the narrator and his crimes?

(see the answer keys)

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