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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 season had the Garcia girls always spent in the Dominican Republic, according to the narrator of the chapter entitled "The Cousin"?

2. From what location does Matthews call Garfield to tell him bad news?

3. The narrator of the chapter entitled "The Cousin" has what subtitle centered two lines below the chapter title?

4. Whose ashes does Garfield keep in a box inside his garden?

5. Which author had been the topic of the seminar in which Garfield had met Yo?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who includes a special note for Sarita on the back of a photograph she sends to the Dominican Republic?

2. Why is the narrator of the Prologue upset when she hears her sister Yo on the radio?

3. For what reason does the Prologue's narrator say that she no longer enjoys reading novels?

4. Discuss an example of magical realism Alvarez includes within the narrative.

5. In what way does the theme of appearance versus reality appear within the end of the chapter entitled "The Maid's Daughter"?

6. Provide three points along the timeline of Sarita's childhood and adolescence.

7. In what way does the theme of marginalization arise within the Prologue?

8. What example does the narrator of the Prologue give for the type of details Yo had revealed on the radio show?

9. When the Prologue opens, the narrator is on her way to complete what errand?

10. What impetus does the narrator of the Prologue point to as the reason for the change in her husband's personality?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the reasons why Julia Alvarez's novel Yo! uses many different narrators to relay the events of the narrative. What elements of the novel's themes lend themselves to this choice and what is Alvarez's intended effect on the reader?

Essay Topic 2

Analyze the interplay between the resolution of Julia Alvarez's novel Yo! and one of the novel's main messages. How does the author make connections between these elements and how does their juxtaposition help the author get across one main message of the novel?

Essay Topic 3

William Faulkner once famously claimed that the most important literature deals with the subject of the human heart in conflict with itself. Explain how the theme of Human versus Self is demonstrated within Julia Alvarez's novel Yo!. Create a decisive, arguable claim and prove it with quotes from the novel.

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