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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. How is the family transported away from their neighborhood?

2. What does the father tell the girl about their situation?

3. Where do the police believe the boy is?

4. How did the police react when the mother objected to going?

5. How do the girl's parents react when they hear about the boy?

Short Essay Questions

1. What lead does Julia get for gathering more information about Vel d'Hiv' during her trip there?

2. What do the yellow stars signify?

3. What happens when the girl and her parents arrive at Beaune-la-Rolande?

4. Where do the girl and Rachel go after Beaune-la-Rolande?

5. What is the larger context for the story, and how does the story clue us in to that larger context?

6. What kind of writing does Julia do?

7. What are conditions like at the location where the buses take the girl and her mother?

8. Describe the girl's escape with Rachel.

9. How does the narrator describe the site of Vel d'Hiv'?

10. What restrictions have the Jews had to obey under the Vichy government?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What does escaping cost characters in "Sarah's Key", and what do characters do when they cannot escape, from history, from relationships, from their own stories? What limits the ability to escape, in the novel?

Essay Topic 2

Write a character sketch of the author based on his style and content. What values does he hold dear? What are his hopes and fears? What kind of person do you think he is? Anchor your sketch in passages in the book.

Essay Topic 3

Julia is dismayed by the ignorance surrounding Drancy and Vel d'Hiv', and she finds small plaques commemorating what took place there, but mostly she finds that people have moved on, and either do not remember or do not care about the past. What do you think is an appropriate form of memorializing the events of the roundup and the Holocaust? When is it appropriate for a place to 'move on' and when is it appropriate that should time remain stopped at the moment of the atrocities?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 837 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample