Our Missing Hearts Quiz: 20 Questions on Plot, Characters & Themes

About This Quiz

This 20-question quiz covers the front matter and author's note of Our Missing Hearts, including the epigraphs and Celeste Ng's reflections on the novel's real-world inspirations. Questions are grouped into plot/sequence, character motivation, theme/symbol, and synthesis. Use the answer key at the bottom to check your work.

Quiz Questions

Plot & Sequence (Questions 1–8)

1. (Multiple choice) Which epigraph appears first in the book?

• A) The PACT guide excerpt

• B) Anna Akhmatova's “Requiem, 1935–1940”

• C) A quote from Margaret

• D) A line from a Japanese folktale

2. (Multiple choice) In the first epigraph, how long does the speaker wait in line outside the prison?

• A) 17 days

• B) 17 weeks

• C) 17 months

• D) 17 years

3. (Multiple choice) Where is the speaker waiting in line?

• A) Outside a courthouse in Moscow

• B) Outside a prison in Leningrad

• C) Outside a hospital in Kyiv

• D) Outside a school in Minsk

4. (Multiple choice) What does the woman behind the speaker ask?

• A) “Can you help me?”

• B) “Can you describe this?”

• C) “Can you remember your name?”

• D) “Can you speak louder?”

5. (Multiple choice) How does the speaker reply to the woman's question?

• A) “I cannot.”

• B) “I will try.”

• C) “I can.”

• D) “I don't know.”

6. (Multiple choice) According to the second epigraph, what is PACT more than?

• A) A promise

• B) A law

• C) A tradition

• D) A punishment

7. (Multiple choice) In the author's note, what topic does Ng discuss first?

• A) Anti-Asian discrimination

• B) Folktales and language

• C) Removing children as political control

• D) Guerrilla art and protests

8. (Multiple choice) After discussing anti-Asian discrimination, what does Ng turn to next?

• A) Real people who appear in the novel

• B) The history of PACT

• C) Folktales and language

• D) The pandemic of 2020

Character Motivation (Questions 9–13)

9. (Short answer) Why does the speaker in the first epigraph say “I can” when asked if she can describe the experience?

10. (Multiple choice) Why does Ng name a character after Sonia Lee Chun?

• A) Because she was a famous poet

• B) To thank her family for supporting Immigrant Families Together

• C) Because she was a protester in the novel

• D) To honor a historical figure from the 1800s

11. (Multiple choice) Why does Ng include real people like Latasha Harlins and Akai Gurley in the novel?

• A) To criticize their actions

• B) To remember their lives and honor them

• C) To show they were protesters

• D) To compare them to Bird

12. (Multiple choice) Why does Ng write about the Japanese folktale at the center of the novel?

• A) To teach a moral lesson

• B) To illustrate how folktales change across generations

• C) To criticize Japanese culture

• D) To explain the origins of PACT

13. (Short answer) Why does Ng compare PACT to McCarthyism?

Theme & Symbol (Questions 14–17)

14. (Multiple choice) What does the first epigraph primarily symbolize?

• A) Hope and renewal

• B) State terror and artistic witness

• C) Family love

• D) Economic hardship

15. (Multiple choice) What does the second epigraph represent?

• A) A celebration of free speech

• B) A promise to protect ideals and a threat of consequences

• C) A call to protest

• D) A description of family life

16. (Multiple choice) What theme is highlighted by Ng's discussion of removing children as political control?

• A) Economic inequality

• B) Political control through family separation

• C) Environmentalism

• D) Education reform

17. (Short answer) According to the author's note, what does Ng suggest about hope?

Synthesis (Questions 18–20)

18. (Short answer) How does the first epigraph connect to the author's note?

19. (Short answer) Why might Ng choose to include both a poem and a propaganda text as epigraphs?

20. (Multiple choice) Based on the author's note, which real-world movements inspired the novel's protests?

• A) The Civil Rights Movement and the Women's Suffrage Movement

• B) Guerrilla art, the Otpor! movement, and Hong Kong protests

• C) The French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution

• D) The Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement

Answer Key

1. B — The outline states that the first epigraph is from Anna Akhmatova's “Requiem, 1935–1940,” and the second is from the PACT guide.

2. C — The epigraph says the speaker spent “seventeen months waiting in line.”

3. B — The line is “outside the prison in Leningrad.”

4. B — The woman asks, “Can you describe this?”

5. C — The speaker replies, “I can.”

6. B — The second epigraph begins, “But PACT is more than a law.”

7. C — Ng opens the author's note by discussing the history of removing children as political control.

8. C — After covering anti-Asian discrimination, Ng moves to “the way folktales and language are both remembered and slowly altered.”

9. The speaker says “I can” to affirm her role as a witness—she can describe the experience of waiting and suffering, even if she cannot change it.

10. B — Ng writes that she named a character after Sonia Lee Chun “as thanks for her family’s generous support of Immigrant Families Together.”

11. B — Ng says, “may we remember your names and your lives,” indicating she includes them to honor their memory.

12. B — Ng explains that she is fascinated by how folktales are “remembered and slowly altered as they’re passed between generations,” and the Japanese folktale is a key example.

13. Ng compares PACT to McCarthyism to show how fear can become pervasive and how free expression has been stifled under security pretexts throughout history.

14. B — The first epigraph depicts state terror (the Yezhov terror) and the act of artistic witness (the speaker’s promise to describe it).

15. B — The second epigraph frames PACT as a promise to protect American ideals while threatening consequences for “un-American ideas.”

16. B — Ng’s discussion of child removal highlights how governments use family separation as a tool of political control.

17. Ng suggests that hope exists—she refers to “beacons of hope” that shaped her thinking, including nonviolent protest movements and acts of resistance.

18. Both the epigraph and the author’s note address oppression and the importance of bearing witness. The epigraph shows a woman vowing to describe state terror; the author’s note documents real historical and ongoing injustices, implying that remembering and speaking out are essential.

19. The poem represents personal, artistic witness to suffering, while the propaganda text represents the state’s official rhetoric. Juxtaposing them highlights the tension between individual truth and institutional power.

20. B — Ng cites guerrilla art, the Serbian Otpor! movement, and Hong Kong protests as inspirations for the novel’s protest scenes.

For more help, see the study guide, questions and answers, and ending explained.