Multiple Choice (2 page)

In exercises 25 through 36, mark the answer that puts the sentences in the best possible order to form a coherent
text.

25.  Nineteen eighty-something

1.  Your father argued with your mother.

2.  Your mother argued with your brother.

3.  Your brother argued with your father.

4.  It was almost always cold.

5.  That is all you remember.

A)  2 – 3 – 1 – 4 – 5

B)  3 – 1 – 2 – 4 – 5

C)  4 – 1 – 2 – 3 – 5

D)  4 – 5 – 1 – 2 – 3

E)  5 – 1 – 2 – 3 – 4

26.  The second

1.  You try to remember your first Communion.

2.  You try to remember your first masturbation.

3.  You try to remember the first time you had sex.

4.  You try to remember the first death in your life.

5.  And the second.

A)  1 – 5 – 2 – 3 – 4

B)  1 – 2 – 5 – 3 – 4

C)  1 – 2 – 3 – 5 – 4

D)  4 – 5 – 1 – 2 – 3

E)  4 – 3 – 2 – 1 – 5

27.  A child

1.  You dream that you lose a child.

2.  You wake up.

3.  You cry.

4.  You lose a child.

5.  You cry.

A)  1 – 2 – 4 – 3 – 5

B)  1 – 2 – 3 – 5 – 4

C)  2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 1

D)  3 – 4 – 5 – 1 – 2

E)  4 – 5 – 3 – 1 – 2

28.  Your house

1.  It belongs to a bank, but you prefer to think of it as yours.

2.  If all goes well, you'll finish paying for it in 2033.

3.  You've lived here for eleven years. First with a family, and later on with some ghosts who ended up leaving, too.

4.  You don't like the neighborhood. There are no parks nearby and the air is dirty.

5.  But you love this house. You'll never leave it.

A)  2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 1

B)  3 – 4 – 5 – 1 – 2

C)  4 – 5 – 1 – 2 – 3

D)  3 – 1 – 2 – 4 – 5

E)  1 – 2 – 4 – 3 – 5

29.  Birthday

1.  You wake up early, go for a walk, look for a café.

2.  It's your birthday, but you don't remember.

3.  You feel like you are forgetting something, but it's only a sense of unease, an intuition that something is out of place.

4.  You go about your routine, like any other Saturday.

5.  You smoke, turn on the TV, fall asleep listening to the midnight news.

A)  5 – 1 – 2 – 3 – 4

B)  4 – 5 – 1 – 2 – 3

C)  3 – 4 – 5 – 1 – 2

D)  2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 1

E)  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5

30.  Two hundred twenty-three

1.  You remember the freckles on her breasts, on her legs, on her belly, on her ass. The exact number: two hundred twenty-three. One thousand two hundred and seven days ago there were two hundred twenty-three.

2.  You reread the messages she used to send you: They are beautiful, funny. Long paragraphs, vivid, complex sentences. Warm words. She writes better than you do.

3.  You remember the time you drove five hours just to see her for ten minutes. It wasn't ten minutes, it was the whole afternoon, but you like to think it was only ten minutes.

4.  You remember the waves, the rocks. Her sandals, a wound on her foot. You remember your eyes darting from her thighs to her eyelashes.

5.  You never got used to being with her. You never got used to being without her. You remember when she said, in a whisper, as if to herself:
Everything is OK
.

A)  5 – 1 – 2 – 3 – 4

B)  4 – 5 – 1 – 2 – 3

C)  3 – 4 – 5 – 1 – 2

D)  2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 1

E)  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5

31.  Relatives

1.  You group them into two lists: the ones you love and the ones you don't.

2.  You group them into two lists: the ones who shouldn't be alive and the ones who shouldn't be dead.

3.  You group them according to the degree of trust they inspired in you as a child.

4.  For a moment you think you discover something important, something that has been weighing on you for years.

5.  You group them into two lists: the living and the dead.

A)  1 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 2

B)  5 – 2 – 1 – 3 – 4

C)  1 – 3 – 5 – 2 – 4

D)  3 – 4 – 5 – 2 – 1

E)  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5

32.  A kick in the balls

1.  You think of all the people, living or dead, near or far, men or women, from your country or abroad, who have reason to kick you in the balls.

2.  You wonder if you deserve a kick in the balls.

3.  You wonder if you deserve to be hated. You wonder if anyone really hates you.

4.  You wonder if you hate anyone. You wonder if you hate the people who hate you.

5.  Insomnia wounds and accompanies you.

A)  1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1

B)  2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2

C)  3 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 3

D)  4 – 4 – 4 – 4 – 4

E)  5 – 5 – 5 – 5 – 5

33.  Rhyme

1.  You search for words that rhyme with your first name.

2.  You search for words that rhyme with your last name.

3.  Your first and last names do not rhyme, but you search for words that rhyme with both your first and last names.

4.  You search for words that don't rhyme with either your first name or your last name, or with anything else.

5.  You are not crazy.

A)  5 – 1 – 2 – 3 – 4

B)  5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1

C)  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5

D)  1 – 5 – 2 – 3 – 4

E)  1 – 2 – 3 – 4

34.  First person

1.  You believe the only solution is to keep your mouth shut.

2.  You never say
I
.

3.  Thanks to several bottles of wine, you learn to say
I.

4.  You never say
we
.

5.  Thanks to a bottle of pisco, you learn to say
we
.

6.  You are rehabilitated.

A)  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6

B)  1 – 2 – 4 – 3 – 5 – 6

C)  2 – 4 – 1 – 3 – 5 – 6

D)  4 – 5 – 6 – 2 – 3 – 1

E)  2 – 3 – 6 – 4 – 5 – 1

35.  Swimming

1.  The scale says 92.1 kilos. You tune the radio to 92.1 FM. You loathe this station, every program on it. You have to lose weight.

2.  You're at the public pool. Sitting on the edge with your feet in the water, you watch some kids who are learning how to swim. The teacher is emphatic, her voice does not sound sweet. The children look very serious.

3.  When you were a kid, you were in love with silence. Later, you wanted words to flood you, sink you. But you already knew how to swim, no one had to teach you. They just threw us into the water, you think, and like dogs, we learned to swim right away.

4.  Or maybe they taught you in school. Maybe that was the only thing they taught you. Not to swim, but to move your arms and legs. And to hold your breath for hours.

5.  Everyone knows that swimming is the best exercise. You're going to be OK, you think to yourself, you're going to lose weight. You dive into the cold water. Swimming strengthens your muscles and your memory.

A)  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5

B)  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5

C)  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5

D)  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5

E)  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5

36.  Scars

1.  You think about how the shortest distance between two points is the length of a scar.

2.  You think: the introduction is the father, the climax is the son, and the resolution is the holy spirit.

3.  You read books that are much stranger than the books you would write if you wrote.

4.  You think, as if it were a discovery, that the last point in the line of time is the present.

5.  You try to go from the general to the specific, even if the general is General Pinochet.

6.  You try to go from the abstract to the concrete.

7.  The abstract is the pain of others.

8.  The concrete is the pain of others colliding with your body until you are completely invaded.

9.  The concrete is something that can only grow.

10.  Something like a tumor, or the opposite of a tumor: a child.

11.  In your case, it's a tumor.

A)  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11

B)  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11

C)  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11

D)  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11

E)  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11

In exercises 37 through 54, complete the sentence using the appropriate elements. Mark the answer that best fits the
sentence.

 

37.  
        
the thousand amendments they've made to it, the Chilean Constitution of 1980 is a piece of shit.

A)  After

B)  Due to

C)  In spite of

D)  Thanks to

E)  Notwithstanding

38.  
I often used to lie,
        
I wore dark glasses.

A)  but

B)  though

C)  so

D)  but even so,

E)  but only when

39.  
A lot of people want me dead,
        
I'm not
        
ill.

40.  
Students go to university to
        
, not to
  
        
.

41.  
And if they have any
        
left, that's what
  
        
for.

42.  
What is impossible for
        
is possible for
        
.

43.  
What is impossible for
        
is possible for
        
.

44.  
If the
        
within you grows
        
, how deep is
  
your
        
!

45.  
If someone strikes you on the right
        
, offer him the other as well.

A)  cheek

B)  week

C)  wing

D)  chord

E)  time

46.  
I want to gather these words together,
        
nothing makes any sense.

A)  though

B)  so that

C)  even if

D)  but

E)  until

47.  
I seek words that
        
appear in books.

A)  sometimes

B)  never

C)  always

D)  only

E)  don't even

48.  
You are not
        
, you are not
        
, you are not
        
.

49.  
Last night I dreamed you were
        
and I was
        
and we were
        
together.

50.  
Last night I dreamed you were a
        
and I was a
        
and we were
  
together.

51.  
You were a bad son,
        
you write.

You were a bad father,
        
you write.

You are alone,
        
you write.

52.  
You were a bad son, so you write
.

You were a bad father, so you write
.

You are alone, so you write
.

53.  
You were a bad son, but
        
.

You were a bad father, but
        
.

You are alone, but
        
.

A)  people vote for you

  people vote for you

  people vote for you

B)  I love you

  I love you

  I love you

C)  I'm not your father

  I'm not your son

  that's not my problem

D)  you know it

  you know it

  you know it

E)  no one knows

  no one knows

  no one knows

54.  
You were a bad son, but
        
.

You were a bad father, but
        
.

You are alone, but
        
.

A)  you're happy

  you're happy

  you're happy

B)  it's so hard to be a son

  it's so hard to be a father

  we are all alone

C)  a good soldier

  a good Christian

  Jesus is with you

D)  your backhand is amazing

  you lent me sixty bucks

  man, you have a good time

E)  your father died so long ago

  your son died so long ago

  you want to be
alone