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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What did Lakha borrow money from Ganesh Nath, the bania, to pay for?
(a) His daughter's dowry.
(b) Sweeping equipment.
(c) A cow.
(d) His wife's funeral.

2. What is so soothing to Bakha about the smaller street, familiar to him since childhood, that he turns into when he leaves the crowded bazaar?
(a) The sight of the English musical instruments.
(b) The feeling of the much cooler air against his skin.
(c) The smell of spices from the spice merchants' shops.
(d) The sound of the children playing marbles.

3. Why does Bakha not feel sad about his mother's death?
(a) He knows that her life was miserable, and he is glad she is free of her suffering.
(b) He was so young when she died that he barely remembers her.
(c) She was a part of a more old-fashioned world than the one he wants to live in.
(d) She was even more cruelly abusive than his father.

4. What does the passage about the cheap nickel jewelry reveal about Bakha?
(a) His fascination with the English has ruined for him some of the things he loved as a child.
(b) He secretly admires the bright, cheerful manner in which many caste Hindus dress.
(c) His disinterest in Indian culture is a result of his outcaste status rather than his exposure to English culture.
(d) His poverty is the main thing that keeps him from dressing as he really wants to.

5. How many times does Bakha try to mount the temple steps before he has the courage to get all the way to the top step?
(a) 2.
(b) 5.
(c) 4.
(d) 3.

6. On page 28, what does the narrator say prevails in the lives of the outcastes?
(a) Silence.
(b) Suffering.
(c) Indifference.
(d) Faith.

7. What does Bakha tell Sohini he is going to do when he sends her home with his cleaning equipment?
(a) Go to get the family some food.
(b) Go make a complaint to the police.
(c) Go back and kill the priest.
(d) Go back and make the priest admit what he did.

8. What does the narrator say Charat Singh's offer "called forth" in Bakha (10)?
(a) Servility.
(b) Compassion.
(c) Hope.
(d) Fear.

9. What does the narrator say that the word "sahib" refers to (5)?
(a) "Superior people."
(b) "Modern people."
(c) "Companions."
(d) "Hindu sepoys."

10. On page 6, what do the outcaste boys start calling Bakha after he starts wearing British clothing?
(a) "Bakha-Britain."
(b) "Sergeant Sweeper."
(c) "O bey brother-in-law."
(d) "Imitation sahib."

11. What does the street urchin accuse Bakha of?
(a) Improper behavior with a woman.
(b) Beating him.
(c) Theft.
(d) Insulting a god.

12. What does the priest tell Sohini he wants her to do?
(a) Consider devoting herself as a temple servant.
(b) Bring an offering to the temple goddess.
(c) Clean the courtyard of his house at the temple.
(d) Tell her father that the temple courtyard needs more frequent cleaning.

13. What does Bakha see in the street outside of town that he reminds himself his mother told him was good luck to see?
(a) A red bird.
(b) A human corpse.
(c) Animal bones.
(d) A lost coin.

14. When the priest claims to have been "defiled by contact," what does Bakha assume (51)?
(a) There must be a third, as yet unseen, outcaste nearby.
(b) His sister must have touched the priest.
(c) He must have touched the priest on his way past him.
(d) The priest is lying.

15. What is a "cantonment" (3)?
(a) A subdivision of territory.
(b) A military or police headquarters.
(c) Land devoted to agriculture.
(d) A palace for minor royalty.

Short Answer Questions

1. When Bakha is in the street where he has to step over the cow, what does he notice about his surroundings?

2. What is "Waris Shah's Hir and Ranjah," which Bakha longs to read?

3. What animals does the man that Bakha bumps in the street repeatedly compare Bakha to?

4. What is the narrator referring to when he describes Bakha wanting to speak the "tish-mish, tish-mish" (30)?

5. What is a tonga-wallah?

(see the answer keys)

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