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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the narrator referring to when he describes Bakha wanting to speak the "tish-mish, tish-mish" (30)?
(a) The language of Bakha's Muslim neighbors.
(b) A higher-status dialect of Hindi.
(c) Hindu ritual chants and prayers.
(d) The sounds of spoken English.

2. What does Sohini eventually admit to her brother the priest did to her?
(a) Threatened to get their father in trouble.
(b) Made improper sexual suggestions.
(c) Grabbed her breasts.
(d) Chastised her for not cleaning properly.

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

4. What British brand of cigarettes do Bakha and his friends smoke?
(a) Lucky Strike.
(b) Weights and Navy.
(c) Old Gold.
(d) Red-Lamp.

5. What finally rouses Bakha from his bed at the beginning of the book?
(a) Thoughts of the importance of duty and hard work.
(b) Concern about where his brother has gone.
(c) A man complaining about the dirty latrines.
(d) His father's constant stream of verbal abuse.

Short Answer Questions

1. 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?

2. What gesture does Bakha continuously make in order to try to placate the man that he has bumped on the street?

3. What is Bakha's first response when he hears the priest cry out "Polluted, polluted, polluted" (50)?

4. What are the walls of the houses of the outcastes made of?

5. How does Bakha feel when he observes the services taking place inside the temple?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the conditions in which Bakha's family lives.

2. Describe Bakha's initial reaction to the man who accuses him of bumping him on the street.

3. How does the incident with the crowd in the street draw to a close, finally?

4. How does Bakha feel as he enters the temple courtyard, and why does he have these feelings?

5. What is implied by the narrator's description of how Bakha seems somehow allied with the fire?

6. Describe Bakha's father.

7. What seeming contradictions does Bakha notice in the treatment of cows?

8. What is insincere about Bakha's offer to rub his father's side with oil?

9. What altercation does Sohini get into at the well, and why does it happen?

10. What is the "fashun" that Bakha and his friends adhere to, and why do they do it? (4)

(see the answer keys)

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