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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 Yoko's favorite subject?

2. Why does Yoko speak slowly to the man with the stutter?

3. What does Ko make for breakfast, "the only decent breakfast" they've eaten in five months?

4. What is Hideyo's motivation to live through the snow storm?

5. How much does the school cost per month?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Hideyo not want to part with the clothes he gtes from the Lees?

2. Despite their destitute situation, how does Ko see things in a positive light?

3. What motivates Hideyo to press on as he struggles through the storm?

4. What role do Ko and Yoko play in Mother's death ritual?

5. How does Ko demonstrate the importance of respect in Japanese culture?

6. In order to survive for as long as Hideyo has in the conditions he has endured, what character traits do you think he possesses?

7. Why do you think Yoko titled her essay, "Understanding?"

8. How do Yoko and Ko carry out the Japanese death ritual and show respect for mother?

9. How does Ko continue to demonstrate her survival instincts in Chapter 9?

10. How would you characterize Yoko's classmates' experience during the final months of the war based on the way she is received?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Upon learning that her story would be published, Yoko said, "I competed against life and death when young. And I won." Choose three critical turning points in the story in which Yoko had to compete "against life and death" and describe how she emerged victorious.

Essay Topic 2

Aside from physically being so far from the bamboo grove, how are Yoko and her family symbolically so far from it? In other words, what does the bamboo grove symbolize for them?

Essay Topic 3

Why do you think Yoko titled her essay "Understanding?" Do you think a different title would have been more fitting? Explain.

(see the answer keys)

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