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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 does Piri characterize her adjustment to life in Beregszasz?

2. What did Mother do as soon as she got Piri home?

3. What did Piri tell Farenc during the visit in Chapter 5?

4. Where was Mrs. Gerber's daughter?

5. How does Piri characterize her mother's state of mind on returning home in Chapter 8?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe Piri's return to Beregszasz.

2. How did Piri communicate with her family in Beregszasz?

3. What did Babi want Mother and Father to do with the children, and what was Mother's response?

4. What did Piri learn from the letter that came from her parents in Beregszasz?

5. Where does 'Upon the Head of a Goat' begin?

6. Describe Piri's departure from Komjaty.

7. Describe the woman mother helped.

8. Describe Piri's relationship with Farenc.

9. How did current events affect the Passover holiday?

10. Describe Piri and Iboya's encounter with the armed young men.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Memoirs like Elie Wiesel's Night, or Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's 'Day in the Live of Ivan Denisovich' detail the goings on inside of concentration camps. This memoir stops at the moment when those stories would have begun. How does this ending point affect the shape of Siegal's narrative? Is there a tension between the memoir as a recollection of childhood, and a recollection of a horrific experience? How does Siegal both include and avoid the experience of the concentration camp itself?

Essay Topic 2

How does Siegal distinguish the memoir genre from the novel? How is 'Upon the Head of a Goat' literary in spite of itself? What novelistic features does 'Upon the Head of a Goat' have (allusions, foreshadowing, symbols, plotting) and how does Siegal make attempts to keep the writing real and urgent and true to life?

Essay Topic 3

Evaluate your own reading of 'Upon the Head of a Goat'--did you resist it, or were you compelled by the story? What does your reading tell you about yourself and your interests? Use specific examples from the book to describe yourself as a reader.

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This section contains 794 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample