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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. On how many hills was Constantinople built?

2. How many months worth of canned evaporated milk were Americans advised to have on hand during the Cuban Missile Crisis?

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

4. What fruit does the spice mahleb come from?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. What was Balakian's reaction to the folktales his grandmother would frequently tell him?

2. Why was Balakian's Aunt Anna so opposed to American suburbia?

3. How did Balakian's mother's behavior at the restaurant in France reflect her cultured upbringing?

4. How did Balakian's father's fear of germs, as well as other family member's obsession with health and safety, reflect their experiences during the genocide?

5. In what way was Balakian's attachment to the Jewish families in his first neighborhood ultimately superficial, and could it have been deeper?

6. Why did Balakian's grandmother tell him a story from the genocide while he was delirious with fever?

7. Why was Balakian so unnerved by his grandmother's constant doting on him at family gatherings?

8. What did the phrase "the old country" mean to Balakian as a child?

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's family's obsession with style reflect their history?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Balakian wrote frequently about the central role food played in his extended family. What importance does food have in Armenian culture? How did the experience of starvation during the genocide impact Armenian immigrants to the U.S.? Would food still have had the same importance if the Armenians had not experienced starvation? How do immigrant families transmit their culture to their children through food? How do they express their love at the dinner table?

Essay Topic 2

Even after the genocide was over, the Armenian people continued to suffer, not least because there was no acknowledgment of their suffering. Write an essay exploring how they continued to suffer at the hands of the Turks in the aftermath. How did the Turks prevent them from reestablishing a free nation? Why did the world stand by as they continued to lose land? What is the current situation of Armenia and how has that nation provided Armenians around the world with some hope?

Essay Topic 3

When the Balakian family lived in Teaneck, New Jersey, Peter felt a special kinship with the Jews. Why did he feel this connection? Was it simply a matter of being exposed to a tight-knit community or was there something deeper that Peter could not have articulated? Why did he feel left out when his own family had traditions? If he had known at the time about the Armenian genocide, would the connection have been deeper?

(see the answer keys)

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