Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood

Multiple Choice and Long Answer questions create ideal opportunities for whole-text review, unit exam, or summative assessments.

Multiple Choice

1. In Part 1, Ibtisam confesses that she feels “doubly occupied” (12). What does she mean by this?

A) She feels imbued with the beliefs of two cultures—Palestinian culture on the one hand, Israeli culture on the other.

B) She feels preoccupied with thoughts of the war and also thoughts of suicide.

C) She feels controlled twice over—both by her mother and by the Israeli soldiers that occupy Palestine.

D) She feels obsessed with two opposing ideals—on one side, wanting to be a “good” Palestinian girl, and on the other, wanting freedom to be whoever she chooses, free from traditional Muslim constraints.

2. Which of the following best describes why Ibtisam refers to her PO box as “the only place in the world that belongs to [her]” (8)?

A) Because her father is the postmaster of the post office, so she has special access to its offices and the PO boxes.

B) Because she alone holds the key to her PO box, and she has a private and deeply personal relationship with her international pen pals.

C) Because she is forced to share a room with multiple siblings, and so she considers her PO box her only private possession.