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 kind of place does Esperanza want to live in?

2. What is wrong with Mamacita?

3. What does Sally’s father believe beauty brings?

4. What does Sally do?

5. What does Minerva do after her children have gone to sleep?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Esperanza hoping to hear when she has her fortune told?

2. Why does Esperanza feel a special kinship with the trees outside her window?

3. How are Esperanza and Minerva similar?

4. Why does her Aunt Lupe tell her that writing will keep her free?

5. What does it mean that both Esperanza is getting noticed by boys, and that she notices them watching her?

6. Why can’t Esperanza, her mother, and other neighbors and kids agree on what Earl’s “wife” looks like?

7. Why is Esperanza’s Aunt Lupe an important person to her?

8. Why does Esperanza’s father call Sire a punk?

9. Esperanza wants a nice house and wants to live on a hill, but she believes that she’ll be different than the others who do so. How does she believe that she will be different?

10. How does the phrase “no speak English” take on two meanings at the end of this vignette?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Esperanza is dissatisfied with her life, or at least her living situation. Why is she dissatisfied? What does she want? And, will she or won’t she most likely succeed?

Essay Topic 2

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

Essay Topic 3

Esperanza feels different than the other girls in the story. From the reader’s perspective, is she different? If so, how?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 707 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample