View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Asghar notice about the streets of Delhi?
(a) He is the only person out in the streets at all.
(b) They are heaped with garbage from the recent protests.
(c) Except for police and soldiers, they are nearly deserted.
(d) They are crowded with protesters.

2. What are the grave robbers looking for when they start digging up pandemic victims?
(a) Jewelry.
(b) Shoes.
(c) Gold and silver dental fillings.
(d) Burial shrouds.

3. What happens shortly after Bilqeece gives birth to her daughter?
(a) Ghafoor marries a fourteen-year-old girl.
(b) Bundoo offers Asghar a business opportunity.
(c) Mirza Shahbaz Beg dies.
(d) Begam Waheed comes to live with Bilqeece and Ashgar.

4. Which person from Asghar's own family agrees that he selfish and not treating Bilqeece properly in Part III?
(a) Begam Jamal.
(b) Begam Nihal.
(c) Begam Waheed.
(d) Mir Nihal.

5. In Part III, what are the residents of Delhi afraid will happen once New Delhi is completed?
(a) The city will become too expensive to live in.
(b) There will be no way to remove the English from power.
(c) The English will banish Muslim residents again.
(d) Old Delhi will be neglected and fall into ruin.

Short Answer Questions

1. What political movement from the previous year does Mir Nihal think about at the beginning of Part IV, Chapter 4?

2. What is Asghar's response to the political situation in India?

3. What reason does Asghar give his mother for wanting to remarry?

4. Why does Habibuddin come home to the Nihal house in Part IV, Chapter 7?

5. After Bilqeece asks Asghar to forgive her, what is the last thing she asks of him?

Short Essay Questions

1. What makes it clear that there is some tension between Asghar's and Bilqeece's families?

2. How does a choice made by a servant end up affecting the course of Asghar's future at the end of the novel?

3. In what ways are Habibuddin and his son proud of one another?

4. What happens with the paste of "herbs and drugs good for the complexion" (119)?

5. What does Asghar believe is the "one thing that kept the heart of man alive," and why does he believe this (182)?

6. Once Asghar and Bilqeece have their own home, what is the routine they settle into?

7. Describe Mehro's groom.

8. What complaints does the narrator make against the grave diggers, cloth merchants, and body washers?

9. Explain why Begam Nihal falls on the stairs and what is done for her afterward.

10. What happens to Habibuddin in Chapter 9?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,084 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample