View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the name of the driver Naseem hires to drive the narrator and Sikander?

2. In what year did Muzzammil immigrate to the San Diego area?

3. The term “zamindar” refers to which of the following in the novel?

4. The comment that “he felt something strange in his chest, like a pounding on a distant drum” (7) offers examples of which of the following?

5. In what year does Sikander first meet Trump?

Short Essay Questions

1. What conspiracies does the narrator note hearing voiced while visiting family in Abbottabad in 2008?

2. What reasons does the narrator give for wanting to avoid a detailed account of his father’s infatuation with Trump?

3. What does the narrator note was necessary for him to understand the comments Moroni makes in her class and her letter (xvi-xvii)?

4. What message does the narrator note is sent by the United States turning against Afghanistan and Iraq in the late 1980s and early 1990s?

5. What does the narrator cite as major disagreements his mother has with the idea of American exceptionalism that his father espouses?

6. How does Asma define the Nero complex?

7. Aside from medical appointments, what contact does Sikander have with Trump?

8. What reasons does the narrator give for his mother not watching the news?

9. What, other than seeing Latif, does the narrator note softened his mother’s demeanor?

10. What parallels does the narrator draw between his father and Trump when initially discussing their first meeting?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Consider the comment that “To admit you were wrong meant to show weakness” (11). Is the comment correct? What in the novel and in experience indicates that it is / not? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 2

Anjum makes the comment that “Men love to fight. They want to fight. They need to fight. And what’s complex are the reasons they come up with to do the thing they really want, which is just to keep killing each other” (44). Does the novel support or deny the comment? What in the text says so? How does it say so?

Essay Topic 3

What function is served by the paratextual shift from a typical prose layout to italics that occurs between “Langford v. Reliant; or, How My Father’s American Story Ends” and “Free Speech: A Coda?” How is it accomplished?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 753 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample