View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is Alicia afraid of?

2. How does she feel when she drives into another neighborhood of “another color”?

3. What do they spend the afternoon doing?

4. How many people are in Esperanza’s immediate family?

5. Whose father was it?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Esperanza want to eat in the canteen?

2. What does Esperanza’s mean in the English translation?

3. Why does Esperanza need to get a job?

4. Why is Esperanza not afraid of the people in her neighborhood?

5. Why do Nenny and Esperanza think that the house they see looks like Mexico?

6. Why does Esperanza write: “here there is too much sadness and not enough sky” (p.33)?

7. Who encourages her to get a job?

8. How does Esperanza describe her mother’s hair? What is her mother’s hair a metaphor for?

9. Why are they “tired of being beautiful”?

10. What does Esperanza feel like her name means?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Esperanza’s mother had many dreams of her own. What prevented her from following those dreams? What does she want for Esperanza?

Essay Topic 2

Womanhood

a. What are the stereotypes of women in Esperanza’s culture?

b. What strong female characters does Esperanza look up to?

Essay Topic 3

Many of the vignettes are a discussion of family. How important is family to Esperanza? How does she feel about her family?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 591 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample