Answer this questions - The Ambush Why does the narrator lie to his daughter, and how does he justify it? Do you think she will ask him the same question when she's older? Why/Why not? The narrator "keep[s] writing war stories." What does he expect the writing to do? Do you think it is working?
Why doesn't the narrator let the soldier pass? How do you think you would have reacted in a similar situation?
Why do you think the narrator focuses on the gory details of the soldier's death?
Kiowa tells the narrator that it was a "good kill." What does this phrase mean in its military context? Do you agree or disagree with Kiowa's interpretation? Why/Why not?
How do individuals justify killing during wartime when they would not kill during times of peace? What does this tell you about humans' tendencies toward self-preservation?
What steps could the narrator take to end his own torment about killing the man? How can we come to grips with the guilt we feel over some of our actions?

Read the excerpt from "mother tongue." those tests were constructed around items like fill-in-the-blank sentence completion, such as “even though tom was mary thought he was ” and the correct answer always seemed to be the most bland combinations of thoughts, for example, “even though tom was foolish, mary thought he was ridiculous.” well, according to my mother, there were very few limitations as to what tom could have been and what mary might have thought of him. so i never did well on tests like that. how does tan build a central idea of her story in the excerpt? tan discusses the types of questions on achievement tests to support the idea that the tests limit students’ ability to write well. tan explains a question on a language achievement test to support the idea that the tests should include more interesting content. tan gives an example of her experience with achievement tests to support the idea that they are not always accurate measures of language ability. tan considers how her mother might answer a question on a test to support the idea that nonstandard english limits a person’s ability to communicate.