Names/Nombres Quiz

Why do people in America call Julia by different names?

• They don’t like her Dominican name.

• They can’t pronounce her Dominican name.

• They think she should have an American name.

• They want to make her feel like an outsider.

Why was Julia’s mother embarrassed by Mauricia’s name?

• The other mothers didn't like it.

• She didn’t like the name.

• It was difficult for her to pronounce.

• It was not an American name.

Julia’s sisters experienced…

• discrimination due to their race and looks.

• different pronunciations of their names throughout their lives.

• embarrassment because their mother chose bad names for them.

• sadness over the use of multiple names.

Julia is embarrassed when her classmates ask where she’s from because…

• it makes her feel like an outsider.

• she doesn’t like to talk about where she’s from.

• she knows they are making fun of her.

• she wants to be from America.

At her graduation, Julia feels…

• mad that no one calls her Julia.

• insulted that no one can pronounce her name.

• that all of her names are a part of her.

• separated from her Dominican heritage.

PART A: Which of the following describes the central idea of the text?

• Names are powerful because they influence how people view themselves.

• Immigrants give their children certain names so they will succeed in America.

• Having different names allows people to easily adjust to different environments.

• A person’s name doesn’t matter because it can be changed to something else.

PART B: Which detail from the text best supports the answer to Part A?

• “I was too afraid we wouldn’t be let in if I corrected the man’s pronunciation… How could anyone get Elbures out of that orchestra of sound?” (Paragraph 1)

• “I wondered if I shouldn’t correct my teachers and new friends. But my mother argued that it didn’t matter.” (Paragraph 4)

• “My initial desire to be known by my correct Dominican name faded. I just wanted to be Judy and merge with the Sallys and the Janes in my class.” (Paragraph 16)

• “Someday, the family predicted, my name would be well-known throughout the United States.” (Paragraph 32)

“You know what your friend Shakespeare said, ‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’” How does this quote from paragraph 4 contribute to the author’s development of ideas in the passage?

• It shows Julia’s family’s desire to adapt to the U.S. and supports the central idea that names are not as important as we make them out to be.

• It argues that people and things are named because of their qualities, which contributes to the idea that the best name is an earned name.

• It reveals that Julia has an interest in Shakespeare and is an aspiring author, which foreshadows her becoming a writer as an adult.

• It challenges readers to consider how names are important and to what degree they affect who people are, contributing to the central idea of the text.

Which statement best describes how the author illustrates the challenges her family faced merging their Dominican identities with American culture?

• The author recalls all of the names she was given in school, which helped her more easily make American friends but made her forget her actual name.

• The author describes the difficulty her older sister faced because of her name, Mauricia, which was not as easily pronounced by Americans and was often replaced.

• The author complains about how fortunate her sister Ana was to be accepted into American culture, as illustrated by her sister’s experiences in college.

• The author describes the challenges she experienced introducing her family to her American friends because she was embarrassed by their behavior.

Which phrase correctly completes the following sentence: Alvarez calls the mispronunciation of her and her family’s names a changing of their names because —

• the new spelling of the names reflects the mispronunciation.

• the family decides to change their names after they are mispronounced.

• she doesn’t understand the difference between mispronunciation and changing.

• it signals a change in the way she sees herself and her family.