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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. Why do the people of Umuofia observe the Week of Peace?
(a) Their forefather's ordained that before they planted any crops, they have to observe a week where it is forbidden to say a harsh word to a neighbor. This honors the god of the earth, so that the crops will grow.
(b) It is a week of happy celebration, dancing, and feasting with everyone in the village. It creates a peaceful, cooperative atmosphere that is supposed to last throughout the year.
(c) It is a time to set aside differences with families and neighbors, forgiving them for past offenses.
(d) It is a time for families to develop bonds of love and understanding, making their relationships strong.

2. How is the weather during the first growing season that Okonkwo starts share-cropping for Nwakibie?
(a) The beginning of the season is poor weather for growing yams, but the second planting of the season grows huge yams, sweet and plump.
(b) The best growing weather ever: yams flourish with the nightly rains and sunny days.
(c) Some good days, and some bad: the yams grow, but not to their potential. Some days were too hot and some rains too severe.
(d) The worst in memory: late rains and scorching sun kill the yams, then torrential downpours wash the seeds away.

3. The Ibo people consider conversation to be very important. What form of conversation do they regard the most highly?
(a) Sarcasm
(b) Rhyming
(c) Proverbs
(d) Orations

4. How does eighteen-year-old, Okonkwo, bring honor to his village?
(a) He has no patience with unsuccessful men.
(b) He has a barn full of yams.
(c) He throws the great wrestler, Amalinze the Cat.
(d) He plays his flute in the village after the harvest.

5. Who is the powerful orator that informs the ten thousand men of the emergency facing the nine villages of Umuofia?
(a) Ogbuefi Udo
(b) Okoye
(c) Ogbuefi Ezeugo
(d) Nwoye

Short Answer Questions

1. What is a man who holds the ozo title forbidden to do?

2. How does Okonkwo react to the disastrous growing season that destroy all his yams and the yams of his people?

3. When is the only time that Unkona is not haggard and mournful?

4. What is Okonkwo's punishment for committing a "nso-ani" during the Week of Peace?

5. Why does Unkona change the subject to music when he and Oybe are discussing the impending war with the village of Mbaino?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe how Okonkwo continues to worry about his son Nwoye, especially after the death of Ikemefuna.

2. Why don't the people want an even wrestling match, ending in a tie?

3. Is it evident that the tribal rituals of marriage are important for not only the wedding couple, but the entire village?

4. Explain why sharecropping is a very difficult way to get ahead for Okonkwo, and how it impacts his parents and sisters.

5. Evaluate Okonkwo's frame of mind after the destruction of the yam crop.

6. Do you think Okonkwo is justified in reaction when he thinks his second wife, Ekwefi, killed a banana tree during the New Yam Festival? Explain.

7. Summarize the role of the women during the New Yam Festival.

8. Relate how Okonkwo is able to plant his first yam-seeds when his father gives him nothing.

9. Predict what might happen later in the book from the conversation of Obierika, Machi, and Okonkwo when they talk about "what is good in one place is bad in another . . ." and that the polite name for leprosy is "white skin".

10. What is the tradition the in-laws must do for the uri?

(see the answer keys)

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