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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. During the first night in the schoolroom, what time did the prisoners hear a knock at the window?

2. Later, how many Polish people did Esther learn were deported as "class enemies"?

3. Approximately how many people were taken to the gypsum mines?

4. Who raced after the truck that took Esther, her parents, and grandparents to the train?

5. What time were the prisoners forced to get up their first morning at the gypsum mines?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why did Esther refuse to go to nursery school when she was four?

2. How did Easter feel when she got off the train in Chapter 3?

3. When Esther returned from taking the matchbox filled with jewels to her grandmother, who was at the door?

4. What did Grandmother and Mrs. Kaftal like to talk about?

5. What news did the Rudomins learn from a soldier?

6. Why didn't Samuel come home one night after work?

7. What was a Siberian electrical storm like?

8. How did the Rudomins learn that Solomon had died? Another deportee from a labor camp, a former lawyer, came to see the Rudomins. He told them that Solomon had died from pneumonia.

9. How did Great-grandmother Reisa die?

10. What did Esther pray when the moon came up the first night she spent at the gypsum mine?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss why Esther was not accepted by her classmates at first and how she gained friends.

Essay Topic 2

Discuss traditions that the Rudomin family had to prevent bad luck and promote good luck and whether the Rudomins seriously believed that good or bad luck could be fostered by something like getting out of bed properly.

Essay Topic 3

Compare and contrast the birthday celebrations that Esther had in Vilna to the one she celebrated in Siberia.

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