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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 food has Makina brought with her?

2. What does Makina tell her younger sister about men who have filthy mouths?

3. Where is Makina shot by the Anglo rancher?

4. What does Makina say to the people who are swallowed by the sinkhole?

5. How does Makina say Mr. P’s men look?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Makina have to establish in her meetings with each of the three top dogs?

2. What does Makina say immigrants carried in their rucksacks?

3. How does the narrator describe the city Makina arrives in?

4. What danger does Makina face in making her trip?

5. What kind of relationship does Makina have with her boyfriend?

6. How does the old man explain the game of baseball to Makina?

7. Who is Makina?

8. What does Makina think is killing her when the novel opens?

9. What is Makina’s impression of the people she sees in the city?

10. Who do Makina and Chucho encounter on their trip from the river in Chapter 3, and how do they escape from this person?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

When is Signs Preceding the End of the World most itself? What is its characteristic passage, or moment? What makes that moment or passage the most representative of the book as a whole? Are there any places where the book seems to depart from its typical self, as if to become a different book?

Essay Topic 2

Assess the nature and quality of Makina’s relationships with boys in Signs Preceding the End of the World. Who does she have relations with, and what are the assumptions that guide those relationships? Are all of her relationships similar, or are there qualitative differences between her relationships? What do her relationships with boys tell us about her character?

Essay Topic 3

Evaluate Signs Preceding the End of the World as a bildungsroman, a coming-of-age narrative.

What are the challenges Makina face in rites of passage in this novel? How do they overcome these challenges, and what do they learn at each stage? Are they complete human beings at the end of the novel, or do they die too early to learn all the lessons a person would need to learn?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 768 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample