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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 is the final act of kindness Paps shows toward the narrator?

2. Why is Paps going to Niagara Falls in Chapter 17: NIAGARA?

3. How many miles does the narrator walk to get to the bus station in Chapter 18, THE NIGHT I WAS MADE?

4. What are the narrator's brothers doing while Paps spends time with the narrator in the bathtub at the end of the novel?

5. What do the narrator and Paps eat after leaving the museum in Chapter 17: NIAGARA?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Manny's dream about kites represent for the brothers and their futures? Provide a quote that shows your reasoning.

2. How does the narrator relate a stray cat's neglect of drinking milk they have given to her to Ma?

3. At the end of Chapter 16, WASN'T NO ONE TO STOP THIS, the narrator says, "Why won't you look at me, my brothers, why won't you take my eyes?" (97). Why does the other want his brothers to "take his eyes"?

4. How does the narrator feel when Paps holds him over Niagara Falls? What might this narrator's intuition say about the narrator?

5. What is the narrator's mood after being "made" by the bus driver?

6. What do you discover about the brothers' place in the neighborhood through the presentation on Page 90?

7. Why does Manny claim that he wants to "reverse gravity" (85)?

8. Why might the author share that the narrator remembers an erotic situation in a public pool locker room before viewing the tape the headbanger shares?

9. What does it say about the narrator when he ponders, "Who knows this mutt life, this race mixing? Who knows Paps?" (104) in Chapter 19, THE NIGHT I AM MADE?

10. How does the headbanger's interpretation of the chalk circle being separated in a way that looks similar to a peace sign contribute to the story?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

At the start of the novel, Ma asks the brothers to squirt tomato juice on her. Before being splattered, she compares the brothers appearance, covered in red tomato sliminess, with what the brothers looked like when they were born. Ma requests that the brothers, "Do it to me [Ma]?...Make me born" (6). What does this quote symbolize about Ma and her possible wants, needs, fears, state of mind, or stability? Provide specific examples to support your answer, as well as appropriate quotes.

Essay Topic 2

The narrator displays conflict about watching the pornographic video, his background with the notion of sexuality, and how the two are connected and also contrasted. Analyze the author's choice to intertwine these emotions that the narrator has.

Essay Topic 3

During Paps' new job as a late night security guard, the brothers accompany him to work throughout the night. The narrator awakens in the middle of the night and has a profound conversation with Paps about why a light is trapped in a cage across the street. How does Paps' reasoning and response present a bigger link to the story and the meaning of being trapped? After reading the entire novel, how might this conversation produce deeper insight into the narrator's feelings and questioning that is not so easily seen from the initial incident?

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