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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 4: "Part Four: The Tentacles of Caste".

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In the page 15 sentence "An old house is its own kind of devotional, a dowager aunt with a story to be coaxed out of her," the idea that the house has a story to tell is an example of what literary technique?
(a) Personification.
(b) Apostrophe.
(c) Litotes.
(d) Metonymy.

2. In "Chapter Fourteen: The Intrusion of Caste in Everyday Life," what figure of speech does Wilkerson use when she says that modern caste protocols "are like the wind" (212)?
(a) Metaphor.
(b) Personification.
(c) Understatement.
(d) Simile.

3. In "Chapter Eleven: Dominant Group Status Threat and the Precarity of the Highest Rung," what does Wilkerson argue the lowest-status Whites have been given in the place of real security and opportunity?
(a) Dominance over political systems.
(b) False promises about economic growth.
(c) The illusion of racial superiority.
(d) The possibility of climbing into the middle class.

4. In "Chapter Six: The Measure of Humanity," Wilkerson says that actions that reinforce the caste system are "autonomic." What is the best meaning of this word in this context?
(a) Spontaneous, occurring without planning.
(b) Involuntary, occurring without choice.
(c) Automatic, occurring without conscious thought.
(d) Autonomous, occurring without social or environmental input.

5. What technique does Wilkerson use for the first time in the beginning of "An Old House and an Infrared Light"?
(a) Anecdote.
(b) Analogy.
(c) First person point of view.
(d) Rhetorical questions.

Short Answer Questions

1. In "Chapter Thirteen: The Insecure Alpha and the Purpose of an Underdog," what does Wilkerson's dog trainer tell her she is behaving like?

2. In "Through the Fog of Delhi to the Parallels in India and America," what is one of the main differences that Wilkerson notes between caste in America and caste in India?

3. To what part of history does Wilkerson explicitly link the Electoral College?

4. To whom is Wilkerson referring on page 4 when she describes someone as "a no-nonsense national figure overqualified by some estimates"?

5. In "Pillar Number Five: Occupational Hierarchy: The Jatis and the Mudsill," how does Wilkerson say the state of South Carolina tried to keep Blacks out of all jobs other than domestic service and farming?

(see the answer key)

This section contains 441 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample