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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 kind of ice cream did grandmother buy Peter when they accidentally got off the subway in Harlem?

2. What anniversary was the Soviet Armenian Republic celebrating when Balakian's father wrote to his son at college urging him to learn more about the country?

3. How many minutes were Balakian's phone calls restricted to when he was twelve?

4. Who was driving when the young men crashed the car in the middle of the night, in "Saturday Autumn II"?

5. On how many hills was Constantinople built?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why did Balakian and Auntie Anna argue about literature?

2. What impression did the writer, William Saroyan, make on Balakian during the party at his aunt's apartment?

3. Why were books so important to Balakian's Aunt Nona?

4. How did Balakian's grandmother continue to affect him even after her death?

5. What was Balakian's reaction to the film, The Graduate?

6. Describe Balakian' s father.

7. How did Balakian's grandmother react to the assault against the man on the city bus?

8. How did sports help heal the rift between Balakian and his father?

9. Why did Balakian's father send him the newspaper clipping about the Armenian Soviet republic and how did Peter react?

10. How did Balakian react to seeing his father perform emergency medical care to the heart attack victim at the football game?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Balakian's family became quickly assimilated into the American suburbs. Aside from the food, Peter Balakian was not exposed to any distinctly Armenian cultural traditions. Write an essay exploring the question of whether assimilation requires that immigrants leave behind their cultures. Is it possible to blend two cultures? Can immigrants retain treasured traditions and still be considered assimilated? Why was the author's family so eager to become assimilated? Would their attitude have been different if Armenia had, at the time, existed as an independent nation?

Essay Topic 2

Balakian did not learn about the Armenian genocide or his own family's experiences until he sought out that information as an adult. Even then, some family members questioned what he was doing. Did his family do him a disservice by hiding the truth from him for so many years? Would knowing the past have enabled him to have a different, deeper understanding of the ways his family members lived their lives in America? Or did keeping the truth from him enable him to have a normal American childhood before delving into the past on his own? Did his family's "protection" of him give him a solid ground on which to stand while confronting the horrific events of the past?

Essay Topic 3

Balakian's grandmother initially sought compensation from the Turkish government for her family's sufferings. How important is compensation to the victims of state-sponsored terror? Can any compensation be sufficient or does the compensation have a deeper, more symbolic meaning? Did the grandmother's filing of the documents help her process the events? Can there ever be sufficient compensation for the Armenian people, especially almost a century after the genocide?

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