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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What did Mustafa do when this influential man appeared?
(a) Hide somewhere.
(b) Talk to him.
(c) Offer him tea.
(d) Run away.

2. What else does the man on the train talk to the narrator about?
(a) His career with the government.
(b) The weather.
(c) The narrator's career.
(d) His career with the army.

3. How many siblings does Mustafa have?
(a) Three.
(b) Two.
(c) One.
(d) None.

4. What did Mustafa suffer from?
(a) Boredom.
(b) Suicidal thoughts.
(c) Wanderlust.
(d) A chronic disease.

5. Which people occupied the Sudan in the past?
(a) The Spanish.
(b) The French.
(c) The English.
(d) The Americans.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which gift does Mustafa bring the narrator when he visits his house?

2. What did the narrator do after leaving Mustafa's house the night Mustafa told his story?

3. How many years after Mustafa's death did the narrator go to work at the Department of Education in Khartoum?

4. Where did the narrator stay during his absence in the village?

5. What is stored in the strange triangular room of Mustafa's house?

Short Essay Questions

1. What do you know about Mustafa's family and how did that affect him?

2. Does Mustafa Sa'eed become an obsession for the narrator?

3. What do you know about the legendary flooding of the Nile described in the book?

4. What did Mustafa want for his sons?

5. What was left for the narrator after Mustafa disappears?

6. How can you tell that the village life seems unchanged to the narrator when he gets back after all those years?

7. What did grandfather tell the narrator about Wad Rayyes?

8. What do you know about the narrator's grandfather as a person?

9. Whose story did the narrator interrupt when arriving at his grandfather's house one day and what was the story about?

10. How does the house of the narrator's grandfather look like?

(see the answer keys)

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