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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. How much older than Raphael is Gardo?

2. What does Father Juilliard say are "what we live by, even though we all know they're sometimes foolish" (52)?

3. In what location had Jose Angelico died?

4. What does Father Juilliard say he has given Rat, though he has never seen Rat wear it?

5. At what age do most of the children stop coming to the Mission School altogether?

Short Essay Questions

1. When Raphael says that he and Gardo might as well be brothers, what evidence does he give to support this conclusion?

2. How does Raphael know that the police do not know that there was a key among the items inside the leather bag for which they are searching?

3. What does Grace say about where she imagines Pia Dante is now?

4. List three physical changes that occur within Raphael's body as a result of his terror at being hauled away from his house by the police.

5. What had Father Juilliard's original intentions been with regard to the Pascal Aguila Mission School and how had those intentions changed later?

6. What is the main point of Grace's piece of narration from the story?

7. Why do the boys jump off of the train before it pulls into the station?

8. What is a "special" (18) and how does the idea of a "special" widen the scope of the reader's understanding of Trash's setting?

9. What reason does Grace give for Pia Dante not having lived with her father, Jose Angelico, while he was still alive?

10. At what point does Raphael realize that the contents of the bag must be hugely important to the police?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss how the themes of truth, lies, and hypocrisy are interwoven within Andy Mulligan's novel Trash. Create a strong, specific claim and support it with concrete details from the novel.

Essay Topic 2

Though the reader may expect that the end of the novel will end in a realistic and probably bleak way in order to reflect the realities of children mired in poverty and exploitation, the author chooses instead to depict a neatly tied-up and happy ending for the boys. Explain the author's purpose in attaching a happy ending to a wholly bleak yet realistic portrayal of the misery in which some children live in the twenty-first century. Include concrete details from the novel to support your points.

Essay Topic 3

In so-called Developed countries, there is often a counter-cultural drive to move away from materialism and to focus on what 'really' matters. However, Raphael's loving descriptions of his few possessions and Rat's dreams of making his living by buying a fishing boat instead highlight the importance of owning certain objects and the ways in which we require at least a few material possessions in order to help define our identities. Discuss the conflict between these two points of view concerning materialism, drawing on examples from the novel to prove your claim.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,095 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample