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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 worries Behrani most about Lester's behavior as he breaks into their house?

2. Why doesn't Lester move his head as they drive to the county offices so that Behrani can see to drive?

3. What question does Lester's friend Doug ask him?

4. What does Behrani feel for Kathy when he finds her sleeping in the car?

5. Why does Esmail say they are behaving like thugs?

Short Essay Questions

1. As Kathy takes the pills to kill herself, how does her attitude toward the Behranis change?

2. Which of the Behranis takes responsibility for saving Kathy when they find her after she took the pills?

3. Why doesn't Behrani attempt to negotiate with Lester when he breaks in and holds them at gunpoint?

4. Why does young Deputy Gleason's expression of gratitude when he encounters Lester on the street make Lester feel worse?

5. Why does Lester feel like a fraud?

6. Why does Kathy go sit in the car to wait for Lester to return? Why doesn't she stay inside the house?

7. Kathy says that she only has one hope now while she's waiting for Lester to return. What does she hope?

8. Why does Lester decide that the Behranis have harmed Kathy when he returns to the house and looks in through the window?

9. What is Connie Walsh's planned defense for Kathy?

10. When Lester describes his feelings during the drive to the county office, he says it is probably the way felons want to feel all the time. How does he say he feels?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Does your personal opinion about these characters change as the story progresses? Do you take sides? Do you feel that one is right and the other wrong, that both are wrong, or that both are victims of someone else's error? Using the notes you made in your notebook during the early days of reading this book, discuss the changes in your own impressions of the characters. If your feelings changed, tell why. If they did not change, tell why.

Essay Topic 2

The gun is an important symbol in this story. Those who are holding it sometimes feel stronger when they have it, sometimes weaker, as if it is a burden. In your essay, track the path of the gun from hand to hand, with the effect that it has on each person who carries it. Start with this thought: Do you think it is unusual that Lester would leave his gun with Kathy? Do policemen do such things under normal circumstances? What do you make of that occurrence?

Essay Topic 3

Events in Iran many years before the opening of this story shape the thinking of the characters in the present. The photo of Behrani with the shah is an important symbol in this story. In this essay, consider the effect of the photo on Nadereh, on Soraya, on Soraya's in-laws, on Lester, on Kathy, and on Behrani himself. Use quotations from the story in each instance.

(see the answer keys)

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