The House on Mango Street, Laughter quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. What does Esperanza offer as proof that she and Nenny are sisters?

   • The shape of their eyes and mouths
   • Correct answer: The way the two of them laugh
   • The clothes their mother buys them
   • The stories they tell the neighbors

   Esperanza admits they do not look alike, so she points to their laughter instead, a sudden startled sound she compares to breaking dishes.

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2. 2

   Question 2. How does Esperanza describe the way Rachel and Lucy's family laughs?

   • Correct answer: A shy giggle like ice cream bells
   • A loud crash like dishes breaking
   • A slow chuckle like a rocking chair
   • A sharp bark like a neighborhood dog

   The ice cream bells giggle belongs to Rachel and Lucy's family. The breaking dishes belong to Esperanza and Nenny.

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3. 3

   Question 3. What does Esperanza say about the house the girls walk past?

   • That it is bigger than the house she wants
   • Correct answer: That it looks the way Mexico looks to her
   • That nobody has lived inside it for years
   • That it belongs to a family she once knew

   She announces the resemblance to Mexico out loud, without being able to say what about the house causes the feeling.

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4. 4

   Question 4. How do Rachel and Lucy react to Esperanza's comparison?

   • They say they can see it too
   • They ask her what she means by it
   • Correct answer: They stare at her as if she is crazy
   • They walk off and leave her behind

   They are on the verge of laughing at her when Nenny cuts in first.

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5. 5

   Question 5. Why is Nenny's response the turning point of the vignette?

   • It proves she has been to Mexico before
   • Correct answer: It shows she understands with no explanation
   • It ends the friendship with Rachel and Lucy
   • It embarrasses Esperanza in front of everyone

   Nenny arrives at the same perception on her own, which is exactly the shared sensibility Esperanza has just defined as sisterhood.

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6. 6

   Question 6. Why does Cisneros never describe what the house actually looks like?

   • Because Esperanza cannot recall what it looked like
   • Because the same house is described in a later scene
   • Correct answer: Because the recognition matters more than the building
   • Because the girls were standing too far away to see

   Explaining the resemblance would destroy it. The subject of the vignette is the private understanding between the sisters, not the architecture.

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7. 7

   Question 7. What does the vignette suggest about the difference between friends and family?

   • Friends can be trusted more than relatives can
   • Correct answer: Family shares a memory that friends do not carry
   • Friendship always fades once a family moves away
   • Sisters quarrel far more often than friends do

   Rachel and Lucy are genuinely liked, but the Mexico recognition runs on inherited memory that only Esperanza and Nenny possess.

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8. 8

   Question 8. Which of these events actually occur in the vignette Laughter?

   • Esperanza says a house on the block looks like Mexico.

     Happened

   • Nenny agrees at once that the house looks like Mexico.

     Happened

   • Esperanza explains exactly what makes the house look like Mexico.

     Didn't happen

   • Rachel and Lucy stare at Esperanza as though she is crazy.

     Happened

   • Esperanza and Nenny travel to Mexico to visit relatives.

     Didn't happen

   • Esperanza compares her own laugh to a pile of dishes breaking.

     Happened

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9. 9

   Question 9. What does 'giggle' mean as used in the phrase 'the shy ice cream bells' giggle'?

   • Correct answer: A light, quiet, easily stifled laugh
   • A loud sudden burst of laughter
   • A long complaining sort of sigh
   • A whispered private conversation

   A giggle is a small, nervous laugh. Esperanza uses it for Rachel and Lucy's family and sets it against her own crashing laugh.

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10. 10

    Question 10. What does 'pile' mean as used in the phrase 'like a pile of dishes breaking'?

    • Correct answer: A heap of things stacked together
    • A single item set out on a shelf
    • A deep hole dug into the ground
    • A thick post driven into the soil

    A pile is a heap. The image is a whole stack of dishes going down at once, which makes the sisters' laugh loud and abrupt.

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11. 11

    Question 11. What does 'surprised' mean as used in the phrase 'all of a sudden and surprised'?

    • Carefully planned out in advance
    • Correct answer: Caught off guard by the unexpected
    • Quiet and deliberately held back
    • Repeated again and again for effect

    Surprised here means startled. The laugh arrives without warning, even to the sisters who are doing the laughing.

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