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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 Rat use to light his hole dwelling?

2. How long does it take Rat to tell Raphael and Gardo where he has gotten the money to bribe Marco?

3. When Rat and Gardo come to ask Olivia to accompany them to Colva Prison, what other purpose is she at first positive that they have in mind?

4. What does Olivia do when she sees Gardo dressed in his new clothes?

5. What is the main thing Olivia says she has learned from the Behala dumpsite in her time there?

Short Essay Questions

1. When Gardo meets with the prison guard named Marco in order to pay a bribe for Gabriel Olondriz's Bible, how does Marco betray Gardo and how does Gardo then escape?

2. When the boys hide inside a small room within a tenement building, who first detects approaching danger and leads the other two boys out through the hole in the roof to safety?

3. According to Mohun in his diary printed in The Daily Star newspaper, what might Senator Zapanta do to him in retaliation for his accusations?

4. When Olivia is confronted by the police due to her showing her passport at Colva Prison and arousing suspicion about her motives, what happens to her?

5. What are the three skills that Rat says he is the best at in life?

6. What features of the prison result in Olivia's pronouncement of the place as a "hell" (100)?

7. What method do Raphael, Gardo, and Rat use in order to evade the police after they leap from rooftop to rooftop in an attempt to escape?

8. Of what crimes was Gabriel Olondriz falsely accused after his attempt to expose Senator Zapanta's corruption?

9. When the boys are fleeing their small room by jumping from rooftop to rooftop, Rat says, "Under us and all around us, though, the world was full of noise" (178). To what noises is he referring?

10. Why does Gardo interrupt Olivia's narration of the jail visit with his own narration in Part 3, Chapter 6?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Analyze the boys' decision to put part of the six million dollars into backpacks in order to throw them randomly into the dump for others to find. Why do they make that decision and how do you know? Is their action just? Does it rectify the wrongs visited upon the people by Senator Zapanta? Back up your points with quotes from the novel.

Essay Topic 2

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 3

Oftentimes in Western culture, volunteerism is looked at in terms of only helping those in need, but the novel seems to put forth the proposition that service to others can also be a means to the provider's own personal happiness. Find examples within the novel Trash that would prove this conclusion regarding the author's message about service to others and discuss the message's overall effect on the reader.

(see the answer keys)

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