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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. To which of the following *pieces of sports equipment* does the narrator compare a skull in “Dome Riddle”?

2. Which of the following does the narrator associate with the headdress of a greedy god?

3. To which of the following does the narrator note Santa Teresa sacrificed herself?

4. On which of the following roads does the narrator stop in “Formication”?

5. Which of the following kinds of sailing ship does the narrator consider in “Monday Aubade”?

Short Essay Questions

1. What reasons does the narrator give for taking her brother to dinner?

2. In what ways does the narrator note that she and her siblings are bestial in “Zoology”?

3. What questions does the narrator ask in “Toward the Amaranth Gates of War or Love” (75)?

4. What reaction does the narrator have to her brother appearing as a Judas effigy in “How to Go to Dinner with a Brother on Drugs”?

5. In “Self-Portrait as a Chimera,” the narrator presents herself as facing execution. How does she relate herself to her lover as she does?

6. How is the room onto which “the door of your hip” opens in “Monday Aubade” described (83)?

7. What is the concluding couplet of “Lorca’s Red Dresses”?

8. In what circumstances does the narrator of “When the Beloved Asks, ‘What Would You Do if You Woke Up and I Was a Shark?’” note having considered the question of the title?

9. What music does the narrator claim to hear when her beloved eats an apple?

10. How does the narrator summarize the appearance of her parents’ home in “How to Go to Dinner with a Brother on Drugs”?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What overall attitude towards family does the collection present? What in the text shows that presentation? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 2

What is the most important theme of Diaz’s collection? What in the book indicates as much? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

Compare and contrast any two of the poems in the collection in terms of overall effect. Attend not only to their formal features, but also to their content and its implications.

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