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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. Where were Balakian and his father when the young woman spoke to the father about leaving her abusive husband?

2. What stock did grandmother recommend buying after she had a dream?

3. To what town was Balakian taking his girlfriend when he refused to return home for his grandmother's memorial service?

4. For what did Balakian win a trophy at the end of his first year at the private high school?

5. In what year did the author's family move to Tenafly, New Jersey?

Short Essay Questions

1. 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?

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

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

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

5. Did Balakian's father have a strong connection to Constantinople, and how did that reflect the city's tumultuous history?

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

7. How did Balakian's memorial poem for his grandmother reflect his Armenian past?

8. Describe the Wall family, who were Balakian's neighbors in Tenafly.

9. When the Balakian family was preparing to move to another town, what was the deeper significance of Balakian's mother's insistence that her son not get too attached to any one place?

10. Describe Balakian' s father.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Turkish government officials and their supporters have claimed that the denial of the genocide is a form of protected free speech. Do you believe that? Can speech that denies a central historical truth be protected under free speech statutes? Does this denial make it more difficult for Armenians to exercise their own freedom of speech to publicize the genocide? Does the granting of free speech rights mean that all positions must be treated as legitimate sides in a debate?

Essay Topic 2

To this day, the Turkish government refuses to acknowledge the deaths of Armenians as genocide. Why would the government continue to deny atrocities committed long before current Turks were even alive? How does the denial of past crimes affect the development of a nation? Can Turkey ever be considered a part of the community of modern, humane nations as long as it continues to deny the genocide? What would a confession mean to the Turkish people today? How important is critical self-evaluation to the development of a nation?

Essay Topic 3

Before the massacres began, the Turkish government rounded up and executed 250 Armenian intellectuals. How did this serve as a precursor for the mass killings to follow? Why would a genocidal government first kill a community's intellectuals? Did it make it easier to commit mass murder by eliminating those who would be most articulate in denouncing the crimes? Have there been other genocides preceded by the rounding up of a certain subset of the victim population?

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