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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. In Patriotic, what is the main reason given for why the brown girls debate becoming mothers?

2. According to the narrator, how is making art a prison sentence?

3. In Reunion, why are the brown girls so relieved to be around each other?

4. What do the girls say about the brothers who manage to escape?

5. What does the narrator call the girls who find solace in the arts and switch their majors to art?

Short Essay Questions

1. What are the ghosts mentioned in “Ghosts”?

2. In Trish, how do many of the girls feel about their careers now that they are two years out of college?

3. How does one of the girls realize that Trish had not been happy in a long time?

4. Why are the brothers in Our Brothers sent to prison?

5. How do the various family members react to the brothers receiving prison sentences?

6. Why do the girls who leave Queens force themselves to stay away at college?

7. When the brown girls meet up in Reunion, what are their mutual complaints about college?

8. What happens to the brothers who grow up?

9. What are the problems the girls who leave and the girls who stay see in each other?

10. What is The Flea?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

As the girls grow up, so have their brothers. What has happened to the brothers? What has led to these events? What is the role of the girls in all of this? What does this say about love? How does this mirror the relationships between the brown girls' parents and their connections to relatives back home?

Essay Topic 2

In both chapters titled, Jenny, the brown girls reveal their love for other women. What takes place in both of these chapters? How are they similar? How are they different? What aspects of the second chapter titled Jenny reveals that the brown girls have grown up and are more sure of who they are? How does the second chapter also reveal, for some girls, that gender and attraction are a lifelong struggle?

Essay Topic 3

By Part Seven, Shadows and A Reckoning, the relationships between the brown girls and white boys and girls have changed dramatically since they first met earlier in Brown Girls. How have their relationships changed? How have the attitudes of the brown girls towards their white partners also changed? What has led to these changes? What does this say about the brown girls? How do you, as the reader, feel about these struggling relationships? What do you believe is the best course of action in these situations? Why?

(see the answer keys)

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