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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 ship did Eva and her family sail on to Canada?

2. What Polish word was the best compliment that a school exercise could receive and means "dash, inspiration and flying?"

3. What city did Eva and her parents get off the ship at when they arrived in Canada?

4. Where was the first place the ship stopped when reaching Canada?

5. What did Eva's mother have an aversion to teaching her daughter?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did Eva feel about national pride?

2. For Eva's parents, what extra meaning did her birth have?

3. What was the difference between the books that Eva choose from the library and books she had to read in school in Poland?

4. How did Pani Ruta live during the war and why was her family untouched by what was happening to the Jews?

5. What, according to the author, was middle class in the Poland of her childhood?

6. How did Eva gather memories before the family emigrated to Canada?

7. What changed in the friendship with Basia after she returned from the camp for young communists?

8. Why did Eva's parents go to synagogue and practice religion?

9. What was an apparatchik in Poland and who, according to Eva, was one? What did they do? What was their function in the political landscape?

10. Why did Eva consider the landing of the Batory the end of the narrative of her childhood?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

According to Eva, when immigrants living in Canada say they love the country, what are they really saying? How does the idea of detachment play into this theory? Support your conclusions with quotes from the book.

Essay Topic 2

Describe the role of music and its importance to Eva throughout the memoir. Explain how her love of the the piano begins and what shape her music lesson take in Poland and then in Canada and beyond. How is a career in music viewed in Poland compared to a career in music elsewhere? Give examples from the book to support your discussion.

Essay Topic 3

How does Eva's mother lose parental control when the emigrate to Canada? Why is her mother unsure of how to parent in her new country? How would it be different had the family stayed in Poland?

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