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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. What does Raphael say is unique about Rat?

2. What does Raphael say he cannot stop doing when he is arrested and is being dragged to the police car?

3. What name does the interrogator call Raphael when he asks him who taught him to read?

4. How much are Rat, Gardo, and Raphael paid for their help in looking for the bag at the dumpsite?

5. What does Raphael say is the reason that he and the other dumpsite boys do not wear shoes?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe Raphael's house in Behala.

2. 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?

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

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

5. What is different about the day the police come to orchestrate the search for the leather bag, versus a normal day within the dumpsite?

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

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

8. 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?

9. Which of the three boys is chosen to open the train station locker with the key from inside the found leather bag and why?

10. Describe the scene in which Raphael is taken from his home and is forced into the police car.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Analyze the author's message regarding perseverance in the novel Trash. State a clear and specific claim regarding this topic and support your claim using concrete details from the novel.

Essay Topic 2

The novel Trash does not shy away from including graphic and disturbing details when describing the lives of the poverty-stricken children making their living within the dump or when portraying the dire conditions in which the society's prisoners are forced to live. Andy Mulligan has said that he wants to make sure young people all over the world are educated about the poverty and hardships that exist for children in many different societies. Some may say that the harsh realities depicted in Trash's narrative are too disturbing for that young audience, however. Write a persuasive essay in which you argue for or against the use of Trash in schools, and be sure to include several logical reasons with accompanying concrete details to support your claim.

Essay Topic 3

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.

(see the answer keys)

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