View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why did both Mina and the writer leave home at first?

2. What does Asma want to be when she grows up?

3. What did Mina's mother spend all the spare money on when Mina was a child?

4. What does Francine once do with people on the street who ask for money in Chicago?

5. Where did Mina's father often hunt?

Short Essay Questions

1. In "How to Become a Westerner," how does Rania Kassem find herself again?

2. What does the writer write about in "How to Make Liberace Jealous"?

3. What is one of Emma's most defining characteristics, according to Mina?

4. What was the writer's first experience in drag?

5. In what way does Mina remember her mother loving herself and her siblings?

6. Who was the only person Mina ever talked about her family with and why?

7. Who is Mina meeting from her family in Lesbos and why is this significant?

8. Why do Mina and Asma have a special affinity?

9. Why is Mina's being a woman significant in her work as a doctor with the refugees?

10. What does Mina buy for the children in "The Little Rascals Go to Camp" and how does this turn out?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Why is Mina's relationship with her brother Mazen so important to her, and to both of them? What specific details does Alameddine reveal to the reader about the siblings' relationship to help readers understand its centrality to Mina's character? Write an essay explaining your answers.

Essay Topic 2

How does Alameddine describe Mina's process of gender transition? Why do you think he chooses to pace the revelations about Mina's gender transition the way he does throughout the novel? Write an essay explaining your answers.

Essay Topic 3

How does Mina's conversation with the unnamed writer in the last chapter - about the unnamed writer's assertion that he can never write another word about refugees, and his urging for Mina to write her own story on the subject instead - affect the reader's perspective about the entire book at its very end? Write an essay explaining your answers, citing specific references to the text to help support your conclusions.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 682 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample